


stone cold sober

by transit (dollyeo)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Minor Lim Changkyun | I.M/Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-13 00:56:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12972192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyeo/pseuds/transit
Summary: Like the true assholes they are, Wonwoo and Soonyoung's friends have an active betting pool on whether they're dating or not. Soonyoung's determined to cash in on it, regardless of Wonwoo's personal feelings about the matter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [historiologies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/historiologies/gifts).



> CAT!!!! I owe you a part 2 lmao this spiraled out of control and I have No Regrets
> 
> many thanks to L and A for letting me brainfart \o/ enjoy!!!

Wonwoo likes to think of himself a perfectly organized and put-together person. In elementary school, he'd gotten extra stickers for being one of the better behaved kids, always making it back to the classroom after recess without having to be dragged away from the playground. In junior high, he used to get one of those awards for perfect attendance, the same kind his brother kept scoffing over because he'd opted to sleep in instead of waking up at the ass crack of dawn before the warning bell even rung throughout the school grounds. In high school, he could have played hooky on cram school and gone straight to the arcade, but instead he'd been one of the few kids the instructor actually knew by face and name (never mind that he'd also spent half that time doodling on his notebook and passing notes, shut the fuck up, Bohyuk). The point is: he's always been relatively straight-laced, and even his moments of rebellion were barely a blip in his parents' radar, especially in comparison to the neighbor's kid, Soonyoung.

Now that he's in university and rooming with Soonyoung, though, it's like all of Soonyoung's bad habits are slowly being transferred over to him by sheer osmosis. There's ramen cups and bowls of takeaway stacked one over the other in their extra-large trash bag in the kitchen, possibly growing bacteria and a colony of other living things in the process. His study table's littered with more manhwa and half-hearted attempts at origami than actual schoolwork or books. Every comfortable surface in their room is piled high with unironed clothes and mismatched socks. He's in danger of nearly failing his bio class for not having enough marks in attendance. Wonwoo is, officially, a messy college student, and it kinda sucks.

He blames it all on Soonyoung. It's always because of him. The only reason they're even forced to subsist on instant noodles and takeaway is because Soonyoung refuses to fulfill his moral obligation of taking over the stove; out of the two of them, it's _Soonyoung_ that signed up for the culinary club in high school and has a vague inkling of doing anything more than boiling water and soup, but he refuses to cook anything for both of them unless there's an incentive involved.

("What happened to you telling my parents you'd make damn sure I was well-fed and kept alive?" Wonwoo grumbles over a plate of takeaway tteokbokki.

"I spent more time nagging people to let me lick off the batter from the spoons," Soonyoung protests. "Do you _want_ me to give you food poisoning?")

He hasn't managed to send Wonwoo to the hospital with his cooking yet, though, the few times he actually does it. It's hard to get Soonyoung to make an effort short of birthdays, post-exam celebrations, Wonwoo generally feeling like crap over homesickness, the threat of food poisoning or a really bad stomach flu, or Soonyoung having someone over after sexiling Wonwoo to the couch all night. (That last one makes Wonwoo feel like crap, too, but he doesn't get any omelette rice out of it. Fucktard.)

The secondhand reading habits? The impromptu art projects? The semi-permanent migration of his clothes to Soonyoung's pile and vice-versa? The constant sleeping in and serial class-ditching? All Soonyoung's fault, his habits of procrastination and the whirlwind of chaos rubbing off on Wonwoo in the past year he's spent living with Soonyoung. It's not Wonwoo's fault if he's taken to contemplating skipping class twenty minutes before it actually starts, laziness often winning out when he sees Soonyoung drooling over his shoulder right next to him on the floor. It's Soonyoung's dumbass self's fault for falling asleep without a blanket after the nth time Wonwoo had kicked his ass in Mario Kart, and _clearly_ Wonwoo's suffering from being treated like Soonyoung's personal body pillow. He can't move as it is, Soonyoung's weight keeping him trapped and unable to crawl to class — even then, he'd have no time to shower, forced to show up in nothing but his striped boxer shorts and one of his hoodies he'd found lying around, one that feels like it's shrunk in the wash, tight around the shoulders.

Oh wait. He feels around for the back of the hoodie, yanking at the tag and squinting at it. Never mind. It's Soonyoung's. Ugh.

He looks down at Soonyoung, who's tracking spit all over his chin and Wonwoo's neck. Personal space, Soonyoung has no concept of it, and Wonwoo's limbs feel like lead, his skin a furnace of heat from Soonyoung's proximity. He places his palms over Soonyoung's shoulders, grunting as he half-heartedly shoves him off. Soonyoung doesn't budge at all.

"If I get kicked out of this class, your ass is dead," Wonwoo threatens.

Soonyoung just rolls over to snuggle closer, and snores at him in response. Wonwoo scowls, reaching down to pinch his side. Soonyoung still doesn't move at all.

For a moment, Wonwoo's struck with the insane urge to blow into Soonyoung's ear, right where he's ticklish the most, but that's just too intimate, too weird. It's not something friends do, even in their most lucid moments. It's not something _Wonwoo_ would do, even to anyone he's even dating, but there's just something about how the shell of Soonyoung's ears turn red so easily it makes Wonwoo want to tease him a bit more, to annoy him for the heck of it, just because he can.

That part, though — that part's something friends would do, right?

Right?

He heaves a sigh, and turns his face away from the top of Soonyoung's head. Even as he does, his hands snake lower until they rest on Soonyoung's hips, holding him close. Because. You know. It's not like he can get up and raise the temperature or rummage around for a blanket to keep Soonyoung's ass from freezing. Soonyoung's the type to get colds easily. Wonwoo's just doing him a favor. It's a win-win situation.

"One of these days, you're gonna get attacked," Wonwoo mutters.

Soonyoung smacks his lips in his sleep, and leaves a wet mark on Wonwoo's jaw in the shape of his own mouth. Wonwoo's skin stings all over, aching, and he scratches at his neck until it feels too raw and tender under his nails. It doesn't lessen the soreness at all, but it's as much an anchor to reality as it is a distraction from letting his hands wander any more than they're supposed to. It's practically self-flagellation at this point, dealing with Soonyoung.

He doesn't end up going to class, but he _does_ take pictures of Soonyoung looking like a sleepy idiot in revenge. The pictures are blurry and grainy in the dim light, but Wonwoo uploads them on SNS anyway and steels himself for the spam of notifications that will no doubt crop up later. For now, he's content to close his eyes and fall back asleep, holding Soonyoung close and letting his fingers linger at the base of Soonyoung's spine.

Bad habits. They're hard to break.

 

 

Wonwoo's not really into skinship, when it comes down to it. Part of the reason he and Jihoon have gravitated towards each other in their overlapping social circles is that they're the two awkward guys hanging back (cowering, Soonyoung says) in opposite corners of the couch as the rest of their friends jump over each other's backs and cling to each other like limpets. Wonwoo's just not too keen about having other people invade his personal space, unless he's getting his dick sucked (or vice-versa; he's not too picky). Even then, rug burn's the absolute worst.

"Were you not hugged enough as a child?" Soonyoung wonders, time and again. It's the same question he poses half an hour after Wonwoo had woken up to Soonyoung's untimely erection and shoved Soonyoung off of him in a blind panic when he realized he'd been sporting one too, dangerously close to the inner crease of Soonyoung's bunched up shorts around his thighs. It's a self-preservation tactic.

"You kept sticking to me like glue so much so it was super annoying," says Wonwoo, throwing an unpopped kernel at him as they bum around for the rest of the morning. "I'm convinced living with you for half a day is enough to tire anyone out."

"You sure your laziness and natural antisocial tendencies don't have anything to do with that?"

"Absolutely," says Wonwoo. He picks up a handful of popcorn, and lobs it at Soonyoung's chest. "Congratulations, you've turned me off of other people forever."

"And here I was thinking I was doing wonders to your non-existent social skills," says Soonyoung, kicking at Wonwoo's kneecap. Wonwoo catches his ankle easily, but it doesn't stop Soonyoung from trying to knee him like the stubborn brat he is. "If it weren't for me, you would stay home all day playing video games!"

"The only reason you kept coming over was because you wanted to use my playstation," says Wonwoo, dryly.

"The dance pad your cousin got you was _decaying_ from your inattention," says Soonyoung, lip curling. He squirms under Wonwoo's hold, making a frustrated huffing noise that has Wonwoo's mouth feeling too dry, parched. "I was doing you a favor."

"What favor?" Wonwoo scoffs, letting go of Soonyoung's foot. "I'm the one putting up with your ass, not the other way around."

"Lies and slander," says Soonyoung. "I've practically raised you, Jeon Wonwoo."

Because clearly Soonyoung, by virtue of living on this good earth for a month and a couple of days longer than Wonwoo, would be able to ensure his care and feeding from infancy, Wonwoo has half the mind to retort. He gets distracted by Soonyoung pushing himself off of his side of the couch to clamber over Wonwoo, caging him in. For a brief moment of insanity and hysteria, Wonwoo thinks that Soonyoung's going to kiss him, and then maybe live out wet dream number twenty-five except on their ratty couch instead of his childhood bedroom, but then Soonyoung presses his palms against Wonwoo's cheeks and squishes them so hard Wonwoo's almost afraid he'll get a permanent duck face as a result. He's been told his duck faces need a lot of work. Fuck Soonyoung so hard.

"Yes, Soonyoung-sshi, you're the best roommate ever," says Soonyoung, pitching his voice low in a poor imitation of Wonwoo's own. "I don't deserve you and your kind heart."

"You have a heart?" Wonwoo deadpans.

"Of course I do," says Soonyoung, scowling. He pinches Wonwoo's lips together, sealing them into a pout. "Don't I feed you everyday?"

"With fast food and microwaveable leftovers," Wonwoo protests through Soonyoung's fingers. "Great husband material right there."

Soonyoung lets out a frustrated sigh, shoving Wonwoo's face away as he pushes himself off of Wonwoo. "Way to rub my singlehood to my face, Wonwoo." He stalks off to the tiny kitchenette a few feet away, yanking the door to the fridge open. "How am I supposed to get married if I can't even get a date?"

Wonwoo looks at the cheap metal ring on his finger, the same one that matches the one Soonyoung's been wearing for a couple of days now. "The first step to dating is actually looking available, you know."

There's a clatter of plates and cans from where Soonyoung's foraging for food, and Soonyoung's voice sounds muffled, though no less energized. "Patience, Wonwoo," says Soonyoung, loftily. "I'm getting my unlimited barbeque fix on Mingyu and Minghao's tab even if it kills me."

Right. Those two. They're the only reason Wonwoo's even caught up in this farce, and he has half the mind to strangle them both if only Mingyu weren't so damn tall and Minghao more than capable of sending him to the ER on pain of death. Wonwoo's an emotional masochist, not a physical one, thanks.

The god honest truth is: Wonwoo isn't dating Soonyoung, even if he really wants to. No matter how many times their friends point out that they're practically doing everything that entails dating minus the sex part (although Wonwoo would _really_ like to fix that last part), the fact remains that Soonyoung and Wonwoo are not, will not, and could never be a thing, Wonwoo's fatalistic tendencies aside. If Soonyoung weren't born to be contrarian and if Wonwoo were less greedy, they wouldn't even be here in the first place, no.

Scratch that. If their friends weren't giant dicks, they'd probably be stuck at square one instead of regressing down a road of wishful thinking and pain on Wonwoo's part. Ugh.

There's a long-running bet between Mingyu and Minghao about him and Soonyoung, one that Mingyu's adamantly championed since they all shared a PE class together and allegedly "caught Wonwoo-hyung trying to get Soonyoung-hyung out of his clothes in the shower and made my eyeballs suffer from _permanent trauma_ , thanks a lot, hyung." To this day, Wonwoo still maintains he'd been trying to get Soonyoung to figure out how to fix the broken zipper on his pants without a safety pin or a sewing kit on hand. To this day, Mingyu _still_ doesn't wanna know.

Minghao, though, has bet his entire life savings that nothing's going on between his dumbass org mate and Wonwoo, never mind that his life savings are non-existent now that he's been spending most of his allowance on _not_ -dates with Mingyu and clothing sales. (Mingyu's banking on making Minghao pay up with his whole life instead, and just the thought of it makes Wonwoo want to gag at the cheesiness.) On one hand, it just means Minghao has a keener eye for these things than most, discerning and sharp enough to not fabricate delusional ideas out of thin air like Mingyu. On the other hand, it says a lot about Wonwoo's sad lack of game that Minghao has absolutely zero confidence in his abilities to romance anyone, much less Soonyoung.

In between the start of the betting pool and the rest of the asshats they call their friends chipping in in small increments, Soonyoung had gotten wind of it and promptly decided that if _anyone_ was going to make serious bank out of it, it was going to be him and Wonwoo, and roped a way too gleeful Chan into making a bet in his name. "Do it for our pride, Wonwoo," Soonyoung had hissed at him when he'd dragged Wonwoo shopping for couple rings. "Do it for the meat!"

Wonwoo looks at the line of Soonyoung's back, bent over the fridge. He looks at the way Soonyoung's shorts ride up as he crouches to reach into the vegetable crisper, and then at the sliver of flesh peeking between the hem of his shirt and the garter of his shorts. Meat. Yes. Clearly his priorities are in order.

He lets his head hit the edge of the bowl in his hands, and then bangs it again for good measure.

"Why am I doing this again," Wonwoo wonders aloud.

"Free food and a hot date," says Soonyoung, cheerily, as he pops his head out of the fridge long enough to wink at Wonwoo. "Fighting, Soonwoo!"

 _We have a portmanteau now_ , Wonwoo woefully texts Jihoon and Junhui in a separate groupchat he's had to instill ever since the day he woke up and realized he might have had less than platonic feelings for Soonyoung, like, a few days after they'd even moved in together. The things he's had to do to keep his sanity in tact.

 _What the hell is a portmanteau even_ , Jihoon asks.

 _Never mind_ , says Wonwoo, and sulkily shoves the rest of his stale popcorn into his mouth as he waits for Soonyoung to finish putting together something that _isn't_ straight out of a Tupperware or a box.

 

 

If Wonwoo's being completely honest, he doesn't mind living with Soonyoung.

It's got less to do with the accidental perving part (really, it does), and more along the lines of them being comfortable enough that it doesn't feel like living with each other is a chore. Before they'd gone apartment-hunting together, Soonyoung's sister had joked that they'd end up stabbing each other in cold blood before the month was up, especially with how many times they've fought over anime spoilers and cheating in video games when they were younger.

"You guys don't have knives around the kitchen, right?" She'd asked the first time she'd come over with Bohyuk, inspecting every nook and cranny for anything to judge their living quarters with and report back to their parents. So far, her estimation of their capacity to survive was far from optimistic, but they'd already paid the security deposit and there were no take-backs at this point.

"Noona, we're two college kids living on our own for the first time," said Soonyoung, with a heavy sigh. "Of course we don't have anything!"

Stolen cookware from their mothers' respective kitchens and a strictly-enforced bi-weekly grocery run have, however, ensured that their kitchenette, while far from impressive and respectable, is at least decent enough to make the occasional homecooked meal. Even now, as Soonyoung is arguing with his mother over a video call about how he's ruining her jjajangmyeon recipe with his substitions, Wonwoo's struck dumb with how deceptively domestic it is, how he can't imagine being roommates with anyone else without Soonyoung around.

(And if he has to hide the uncomfortable fluttering in his chest at how comically serious Soonyoung looks in the ruffled apron Bohyuk had gotten them as a gag housewarming gift — well. He's only human.)

"Here's what I don't get," says Wonwoo, pointedly peeling his eyes away from the nape of Soonyoung's neck, white and glistening with sweat. "If you can make the effort to cook for both of us now, how come you never did it before?"

By _before_ , he means: the pathetic farce of their relationship, all borne from the promise of protein and soju, but he doesn't say it out loud. It already makes his head hurt just thinking about it.

Soonyoung snorts, and he turns the fire down. "Was I dating you back then?"

"You're still not dating me now," Wonwoo points out. If it sounds a little grudging to his ears, it doesn't seem to reach Soonyoung, at least. Soonyoung just shrugs and spoons up a bit of the blackbean sauce to taste.

"That's not what Mingyu thinks, though," says Soonyoung, a grin tugging at the edges of his mouth. "Here, taste this."

He holds up the spoon to Wonwoo's lips, laughing at Wonwoo's cross-eyed stare at the proferred item. "I didn't poison it, genius."

"Not _yet_ ," Wonwoo grumbles. He opens his mouth, and Soonyoung pushes the spoon forward with a gentleness that belies the exasperation in his tone. He smacks his lips together, wrinkling his nose, but he feels his facial muscles smoothen out at Soonyoung's expectant gaze.

"Needs more sugar," he says.

"And here I was thinking you'd ask for more salt," says Soonyoung, with a wry smile. He reaches over to thumb at the corner of Wonwoo's lips, scraping a bit of sauce away from his skin. "You missed a spot, by the way."

Wonwoo's skin tingles and burns for hours afterward. He'd blame it on the food, but he knows better — there's nothing spicy about jjajangmyeon, after all.

 

 

Here are the facts:

Wonwoo likes Soonyoung. Against his better judgment and will, he _really_ , really likes Soonyoung. No matter how many times he feels like stomach acid is rising up to his throat every time Soonyoung says or does something that induces so much secondhand embarrassment in him that he just wants the earth to swallow him up, there's no denying the fluttering in his chest, closing up into a tight-fisted fondness that makes him feel choked up. If he didn't like Soonyoung so much, he would have packed up his bags and moved out within the first few days, because Wonwoo doesn't believe in sticking around lost causes and suffering fools every day.

As much as he jokes about it, though, Wonwoo knows that, objectively speaking, Soonyoung isn't an idiot. Sure, he blanks out in front of technology that _isn't_ a video game console from three years ago, and he's kind of slow on the uptake when it comes to reading the mood sometimes, especially when he's caught up in his own temper, but Soonyoung's the kind of genius ditz that speaks his own language in scribbles and semiotics Wonwoo can't even begin to decipher. He's hyperfocused where it counts, he's persistent when it matters, and he has a good grasp of sense and spatial awareness, it's practically innate.

Unfortunately, those are also the things Wonwoo finds annoying about him sometimes, especially when it gets Wonwoo stuck in the stupidest situations. Like. Say. Being Soonyoung's fake boyfriend just to prove a point to a couple of juniors that can't mind their own business for once. Wonwoo wishes he could blame it on Soonyoung's lack of sobriety, but he really, really can't, not when Soonyoung had been sucking the boba out of his milk tea as they'd argued over ring shopping, Soonyoung threatening to put an even cheaper plastic ring on Wonwoo's finger straight out of a cereal box if he wouldn't shut up. Priorities, Soonyoung clearly doesn't have them. Wonwoo wonders why he can't say no to him either, but then Soonyoung wrinkles his nose at him and purses his lips into a small moue that kinda fries Wonwoo's brain just a little and makes him regret wearing skinny jeans outside. He's really too fucking easy.

Anyway, Wonwoo likes Soonyoung, the world is round, all their friends are assholes, and Soonyoung likes him too. It's just that their version of _like_ doesn't quite match up with each other's, and now Wonwoo's suffering from it on a daily basis.

It's fine. Wonwoo's come to terms with the reality that he'll never be like that with Soonyoung anyway, not since the first time Soonyoung fell in love with idols left and right and decided his type was anyone _but_ Wonwoo. He'll live.

"That was the most depressing thing I've heard in my life, and I've heard Jihoon cry over sad cat videos," Junhui tells him.

" _You're_ the one who keeps crying," Jihoon protests, turning red.

Wonwoo would feel more sympathy for Jihoon, except he thinks about how, exactly, he'd gotten into this bullshit in the first place, and promptly abandons him to the wolves.

"Made any progress on that lab report yet?" Jihoon scathingly grunts out when Junhui's too distracted ordering takeaway in halting words out of a new menu, like he's blaming Wonwoo for throwing his dead and unfeeling body into the ditch called Junhui's doting.

"I'm working on it," says Wonwoo, looking away from his feed and Alt+Tab-ing his way back to his very blank and very uninspiring draft. Soonyoung's been spamming Wonwoo's DMs with cutesy selcas that make Wonwoo's insides churn since they'd parted ways in the library, and it makes him want to scream into a pillow until his throat is hoarse.

"What about your equally disastrous love life?" Jihoon asks, dryly.

Wonwoo doesn't even bat an eyelash anymore. "I'm working on that too."

Jihoon makes a face, and leaves Wonwoo alone enough for a brief flicker of triumph to seize Wonwoo's chest. As much as Jihoon likes to tease Wonwoo about his ineptitude around Soonyoung, he's also emotionally constipated enough to give up when Wonwoo just rides along with the snide remarks, clearly unwilling to know or hear more about how exactly ass over tits Wonwoo is for his roommate. It's a matter of shamelessness, and Wonwoo's slowly learning to be more brazen and thick-skinned about owning up to his futile infatuation, as long as he keeps poking fun at Soonyoung to his face.

It's a complicated trade-off. Junhui not-so-privately thinks he's tsundere. Wonwoo, equally vocal, thinks Junhui should just shut the fuck up.

"That's exactly what someone tsundere would say," says Junhui, looking pleased with himself. "Jihoon says it all the time."

"Keep that up and I'll make sure _we're_ fake dating by the end of this," Jihoon grumbles under his breath, even as Junhui just coos at him and strokes the back of his neck like a cat kneading at its human. Wonwoo honestly wants to gag.

"How are you two assholes in a functioning relationship again and not me?" Wonwoo asks, not a little bitterly.

"Because Jihoonie is an actual softie and I know the difference between a joke and a come on," says Junhui, looking so at ease and self-assured that Wonwoo's almost tempted to ask him how he does it, when Jihoon's prickly and grudgingly docile at turns.

Then again, Junhui hasn't been a thorn in Jihoon's side since birth, and he doesn't take anyone up on dumb bets for his own self-serving benefit. "Why'd I fall in love with an idiot again," he wonders despondently, staring at the blinking cursor on his screen.

"But where would we get our daily dose of entertainment from if you didn't?" Jihoon asks.

"Assholes," Wonwoo reaffirms, and turns back to his screen to stalk the rest of Soonyoung's feed to procrastinate.

 

 

If anyone asks Wonwoo, here's how it had started:

They're at a party of one of Seungcheol's frat friends, and he's off somewhere goading Jisoo to take shots off of Jeonghan, much to the enthusiasm of the girl's volleyball team. Wonwoo's lost Jihoon somewhere in between Junhui slinking up to them at the entrance and herding Jihoon away in search of alcohol and a horizontal surface, but at least he's still got a firm hold on Soonyoung, who's looking a little too tipsy from pre-gaming on an empty stomach. Wonwoo's had to yank him back from throwing himself into the mess of gyrating bodies in the common room in case he throws up on some poor, unsuspecting person, and it's only by sheer force of will, years of honed patience, and not a little burn of jealousy that he locks their sweaty fingers together, leading him to the kitchen to get a bit of air.

He finds Mingyu, Seokmin and Minghao with their heads bent together, Mingyu and Seokmin already halfway through what looks like their nth can of beer and Minghao nursing his personal bottle of Coke. At the sight of them, Seokmin raises his eyebrows, and Mingyu looks far too thrilled that Wonwoo has to wonder if he's maybe, _possibly_ high.

"What?" Wonwoo asks, trying not to look unnerved even as they scrutinize him like he's a fascinating specimen under a microscope. "What are you three idiots up to now?"

"Oh my god," says Seokmin, sounding awed even as Mingyu grabs onto the back of Minghao's shirt in his excitement. "I can't believe it." He pinches his cheek, and blinks at Wonwoo dumbly. "Mingyu's right."

Two words Wonwoo's never associated with accuracy, definitely, but he's too busy trying to keep Soonyoung from making grabby hands at Seokmin's beer to even come up with a good comeback. "Fuck, Soonyoung, can you just— _jeeze_ —"

"You're no fun," Soonyoung complains, but doesn't let go of Wonwoo's hand. He leans against Wonwoo's shoulder, pawing at the strings of Wonwoo's jacket like a distracted cat. "What's the point of a party if I can't drink more?"

"If you end up making out with the floor, I'm not gonna stop you."

"Too far," Soonyoung heaves a sigh. "You're nearer. Why can't I make out with you instead?"

Wonwoo closes his eyes. "You're so fucking drunk."

"What did I tell you?" Mingyu preens, his voice bringing Wonwoo back to the reality that they have an unwanted popcorn audience watching Wonwoo's pain and suffering. "I told you they were dating!"

"Couldn't you have started dating _before_ midterms, hyung?" Seokmin groans. He feels around for his wallet, pulling a couple of 50,000 won bills out of it and handing it over to a smug Mingyu. "Now I'm gonna have to eat instant noodles for the rest of the month."

"I totally called it," Mingyu brags. He turns to Minghao, holding out an expectant hand. "Pay up."

Minghao doesn't look too convinced, though; he takes one good look at Soonyoung's fingers laced with Wonwoo's, and Wonwoo almost breaks out into a cold sweat at his stare, instinct overtaking rational thought. Soonyoung makes an unhappy noise at the back of his throat, like he's hurt, and it takes Wonwoo a moment to realize his nails are digging into Soonyoung's skin, tight enough to bruise.

He doesn't let go.

"Looks fake, but nice try," says Minghao, dryly. "Give Seokmin his money back, dumbass."

"Oh come on," says Mingyu, scowling as Seokmin cackles, "why can't you just believe in the power of love for once?"

"I believe in the power of love and Sailor Moon," says Minghao. "It's just that I don't believe that _they_ suddenly got their heads out of their asses long enough to date."

Soonyoung furrows his brows together, vaguely lucid enough to realize he's being dissed to his face. "What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Soonyoung asks, affronted.

"It means you're an oblivious idiot, hyung," says Minghao. He takes a noisy sip out of his straw, completely unfazed. "My bank account thanks you for it."

"You already lost the bet," Mingyu protests. "Your life savings are _mine_."

" _Please_ ," Minghao scoffs. "The day they get together is the day I marry you."

"Hold on," says Soonyoung, "have you three been betting about me and Wonwoo?"

None of them look remotely guilty, except maybe for Seokmin. "Sorry, hyung," says Seokmin, with a shrug. "You two are kind of obvious about it."

"Obvious about _what_ ," Soonyoung splutters, turning a color of red that Wonwoo's only seen on Soonyoung when he's either drunk out of his ass or suffering from a heat wave. "Seokmin-ah, I _trusted_ you—"

Wonwoo drags him away before he can lunge forward and maybe murder any of their idiot friends in cold blood, but Soonyoung doesn't stop his tirade about traitorous juniors with their big, fat mouths; Wonwoo's not really listening to much of his words, though, too focused on trying to ply Soonyoung with water and snacks to get him back to the world of sobriety before he does something reckless.

He watches Soonyoung's throat bob as he takes a swig of water, and Wonwoo feels something inside him clench. _Why can't I make out with you instead_ , says Soonyoung's voice in his head, over and over again. He looks at Soonyoung's lips, wet and pink, and then at the tip of Soonyoung's tongue peeking out of his mouth as he chases after a few stray droplets of water.

He looks away.

It's how Chan finds them on the staircase, Soonyoung mumbling near-incomprehensible nothings as he outlines all the things he plans to do to Seokmin the minute he slips up. "What's up with him?" Chan asks, nodding at Soonyoung.

"He found out about the bet," says Wonwoo, shortly.

"Ah."

Soonyoung's eyes flutter open, and he shoots up and away from Wonwoo's lap, looking at him with equal volumes of betrayal not unlike a kicked puppy, like Wonwoo's just confessed to wiping out his entire hard drive full of Shinee's fan videos and bootlegs of their DVDs. "You _knew_ about the bet?"

It's a little hard not to with Mingyu shoving it in his face all the time. "Sorry," he says, even if he doesn't really want to apologize. It's just the fastest way to get Soonyoung to shut up, he figures.

He tries to drag Soonyoung back, but Soonyoung just recoils, leaning against the railing. "Am I the only one who doesn't know?"

"Pretty much," says Chan, bluntly crushing Wonwoo's hopes of ever scoring anything with Soonyoung in the process.

"So much for the roommate code, traitor," says Soonyoung, jabbing an accusing finger at Wonwoo. He ends up poking his cheek instead, and Wonwoo just rolls his eyes and bats him away.

Chan blinks at them. "What's the roommate code?"

"It's a stupid rule he made up when we were about to sign the contract for our apartment," says Wonwoo.

"It's not stupid," Soonyoung wails. "It's the _foundation_ of our entire relationship, the _covenant_ of our blood—"

"Basically it's a stupid rule that we have to tell each other everything, _especially_ bits of gossip," says Wonwoo, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Apparently we're middle-aged housewives with no lives now."

Never mind that Wonwoo's been breaking the roommate code since the day he started fantasizing about Soonyoung in the shower and wondering how he'd gotten himself off in his spare time. If any toys or pillows where involved. That's neither here nor there, though. Soonyoung's too busy looking appalled and enraged, and a small, questionable part of Wonwoo finds it cloyingly cute and infuriatingly hot.

A _very_ questionable part, apparently. He tries to focus on Soonyoung's Adam's apple, watching it bob as he splutters in indignation.

"I tell you all about my digestive system and my hook-ups," Soonyoung forges on, and Wonwoo stares at him with dead eyes, "and you can't even give me a heads-up that people are _profiting_ off of our non-existent relationship when _I_ could have cashed in on this instead?"

"See, this is _exactly_ why I didn't tell you—" Among other things, of course.

"You know, hyung," Chan cuts in, sounding far too innocent it has Wonwoo's hackles raising, "it's not too late, if you think about it. You can always join the betting pool too."

"Don't even start," says Wonwoo, throwing him a scathing look that only has Chan shrugging.

"I can always put it under your name," says Chan. "I haven't put in anything yet."

"Because you were too cheap?"

"Because I have _morals_ and _integrity_ ," says Chan, loftily. He throws Wonwoo a calculating look, and Wonwoo honestly regrets ever letting Chan come near Jeonghan or Minghao, _ever_. Bad influences, clearly. "So? What do you say, Soonyoung-hyung?"

Soonyoung's got a contemplative look on his face, the same kind Wonwoo strongly associates with bad decisions like spur-of-the-moment online purchases and splurging on concert tickets instead of anything of substance to his stomach. Wonwoo _hates_ that face.

"This is the stupidest idea in the world," says Wonwoo.

The thoughtful look on Soonyoung's face falters, and Wonwoo almost — _almost_ — hesitates at the openly hurt wrinkle of his brow. _Stay strong_ , he thinks. Self-preservation. It's an exercise he needs to go through for Soonyoung.

Now if only Chan would just shut up, but even that is apparently too much to ask for

"You're right," says Chan, heaving a sigh. "What was I thinking?" He looks at his nails, feigning nonchalance even as he single-handedly makes Wonwoo's heart feel like it's about to stop at his next words. "I bet you can't even fool everyone into thinking you're dating Wonwoo-hyung in the first place. It'd never work."

 _Please don't take the bait like an idiot_ , Wonwoo thinks, closing his eyes and praying to any deity in the sky to listen to him for once. God, Buddha, _anyone_. _Please, please_ , please _actually think for a second and not_ —

"Fuck you," Soonyoung slurs out, red-faced and clearly not thinking straight, "I'm gonna win that bet, Lee Chan."

He looks at Wonwoo, indecision warring on his face for a moment, before he clenches his jaw and swoops in, close enough that Wonwoo's almost — almost! — deluded into thinking he's about to kiss him.

He does, but it's — whatever. Soonyoung smacks an obnoxious kiss to Wonwoo's cheek, waggling his eyebrows at him, and then slinks away to find more alcohol and maybe not-so-subtly hint at his impending relationship upgrade to the three idiots. Wonwoo blinks woodenly at his retreating back, fingers reaching up to touch the place where Soonyoung had kissed him, skin still tingling from the force of it. Part of Wonwoo wants to follow after Soonyoung, to keep him upright and balanced enough to not stumble into other equally drunk people, but another part is just too struck dumb and shell-shocked to do more than stare into the distance.

"You look like an idiot like that, hyung," says Chan, ever the observant soul. Wonwoo makes a strangled noise at the back of his throat, much like a dying cat.

When he finally gets his bearings back, Chan's still grinning at him like a little shit. An absolutely perfect, ingenious little shit, the best wing man in the world, Wonwoo promptly decides. Fuck the rest of their friends. Chan's officially his favorite now.

"I don't know if I want to punch you or kiss you right now," says Wonwoo.

"I think you should kiss your new boyfriend instead, or else he might get jealous," says Chan with a smirk, like the denizen of hell Wonwoo knows he is. "You're welcome, by the way."

"I take it back," Wonwoo decides, "I really fucking hate you so much."


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the day is a blur to Wonwoo — he finishes his half-assed lab report at Jihoon's, blatantly copying parts of Jihoon's when Junhui distracts him, and then he goes to class and doodles in the margins of his notebook without really absorbing anything. In his mind, he's already playing Battlegrounds in his head and kicking Seungcheol's ass in the process. Good times.

He'd tried getting Soonyoung to learn how to play too, but trying to get Soonyoung to learn how to play something new is an exercise in futility and masochism in its own right. On one hand, Wonwoo loves blowing his enemies up and winning first place; on the other hand, as much as he jokes about Soonyoung getting his ass kicked every time, it's a different story if the one attacking Soonyoung _isn't_ Wonwoo.

("Very tsundere," the voice in his head that sounds way too much like Junhui points out.

"Fuck off," he mutters under his breath, and his seatmate warily looks at him like he's crazy before not-so-subtly inching away. Wise choice.)

When he gets home, though, all his plans of causing mayhem and despair to the plebeians on Steam are shot to hell the minute he sees Soonyoung camped out in front of Wonwoo's gaming laptop, making full use of his graphics processor by watching _fancams_ instead of something more productive. Wonwoo would kick him for it, but Soonyoung's stretched out on _his_ bed in a loose tank top and a pair of boxers that Wonwoo _swears_ looks like it's been shrunk in the wash one too many times, snacking on a bag of Wonwoo's chips. Wonwoo's fingers twitch at his side, when Soonyoung shifts and spreads his legs a little wider, like he isn't already taking up way too much space on Wonwoo's bed.

Think of machine guns. Blood spatters. Pixelated gore and destruction, he tells himself. _Anything_ but the swell of Soonyoung's ass. It's _right there_. Wonwoo kind of wants to shoot himself right about now.

He settles for hitting the back of Soonyoung's head with a throw pillow instead.

"Ow!" Soonyoung yelps, hand coming up to shield the back of his head a little too late. He darts around, the frown on his face doing little to ease the scowl on Wonwoo's. "What was that for?"

"Stop eating _my_ snacks on _my_ bed," says Wonwoo. "And if you're gonna watch something HD on _my_ laptop, at least make it something more entertaining!"

"Would you prefer it if I were watching porn instead?"

 _You don't know the half of it_. "It wouldn't be the first time you killed my hard drive doing that."

"Go fuck yourself," says Soonyoung, cheerfully. He turns back to the screen, closing the fancam, Wonwoo looks away from the slope of his back, the column of his nape. His fingers dig into his palm, harder.

When Soonyoung scoots over and pats the empty space beside him, though, Wonwoo can't help but give in. He presses his cheek against the curve of Soonyoung's shoulder, biting his lip.

Fake dating Soonyoung really fucking sucks.

It's even worse when they fall asleep in the middle of catching up on the latest arc of One Piece, and Wonwoo wakes up the next day with a crick in his neck and an armful of Soonyoung snuggling up against his chest, cheek smushed against Wonwoo's clavicle. His hair falls into his face in a rumpled mess, and Wonwoo carefully sweeps his bangs to the side, exposing the surface of his forehead, marred only by the furrow of his brow. When Wonwoo's thumb strokes at his sides, the slight frown disappears naturally, like it had never been there in the first place.

Wonwoo wonders if it's selfish, if he doesn't want Soonyoung to wake up just yet. He closes his eyes, and tucks his cheek against the top of Soonyoung's head, stealing bits of intimacy when he can.

It's hard to not be vulnerable around him, even if a logical part of Wonwoo knows that things don't work out for him as he plans them when he does. He should have gotten up from bed, extracted himself from Soonyoung's death grip, and pretended nothing had happened. He shouldn't have snuggled closer.

It's a reminder that he has to tell himself when he finds himself shoved off the mattress without so much of a warning, and he stares at the ceiling with increasing dread. Soonyoung's always got something up his sleeve, and he does it without the slightest hint of regret or shame; even now, he's peering at Wonwoo from his spot on _Wonwoo's_ bed, grinning.

The urge to kiss the smile off of his smarmy face is winning over Wonwoo's instantaneous desire to hit him with a bedroom slipper.

"Hey, boyfriend," Soonyoung chirps, giving Wonwoo the same crinkly-eyed smile he's learned to simultaneously loathe and love, even as it makes something in him ache more than the soreness of his back and his limbs on their bedroom floor. Boyfriend. Ha ha. Fuck Wonwoo's life so hard. "What are our plans for today?"

Wonwoo doesn't even flinch at the way Soonyoung crawls down to the floor with him, like he's a nosy dog that wants to bury itself into Wonwoo's side all the time. Or a clingy tentacle monster. That might be more appropriate, what with how Soonyoung just drapes himself all over his back, tucking his face into the crook of Wonwoo's neck and shoulder. For a moment, Wonwoo almost forgets how to breathe like a normal, functioning person, instead of the ball of anxiety and emotional repression that he actually is.

"Brunch with Mingyu," Wonwoo manages to croak out. "And then I was gonna go meet a couple of friends after class."

"Sounds like a plan," says Soonyoung. "I'm in."

"You're not invited."

Soonyoung pinches his side. "I'm your _boyfriend_ ," he points out. "What better way to prove it other than to be as obnoxious about it as possible in front of Mingyu's face?"

"I swear to god, if you even think for one second about doing something more than handholding—"

"Relax, princess," Soonyoung scoffs. "I'm not gonna climb onto your lap and make out with you, if that's what you're afraid of. Don't you have any faith in me?"

Wonwoo just stares at him with half-dead eyes. "No."

"That's the spirit," says Soonyoung, completely ignoring him as he pushes himself off of the floor with a huff. He smoothens down the creases of his boxer shorts (what little of it remains, at least), and holds out a hand to Wonwoo to help him up. Against his better judgment, Wonwoo takes it. And even as he comes to a stand, it takes a while before he lets go.

Soonyoung doesn't look like he minds or even notices, not in the slightest. He just beams at Wonwoo.

"For the record, I'd like you to know I regret agreeing to this in the first place," Wonwoo informs him. The grin on Soonyoung's face falters, and he clicks his tongue.

"Just wait," Soonyoung calls out as he heads to the bathroom, looking more determined than even that time he'd lined up for tickets to a fanmeet the first time around. "I'll be the best damn fake boyfriend you'll ever have, Wonwoo."

Wonwoo pinches the bridge of his nose as he sighs. That's exactly what he's afraid of.

 

 

It's not that Wonwoo's frigid. He doesn't have a problem with dating anyone in uni; he's even dated more people than Soonyoung's idol biases, which is saying a lot considering how Soonyoung flits in and out of groups in the face of so much choice.

Wonwoo knows his type. He'd be an idiot not to. He doesn't like it when they're too clingy, when they're too forward to the point of being annoying, when they don't know how to draw the line — which is ironic, because he's exactly like that. At least, according to Soonyoung.

Still. Dating's nice. Dating's easy. It's fairly low commitment, at least until the years pile up and suddenly all the emotional investment's too much. There's, like, zero chance of it blowing up in their faces, is what Soonyoung's been trying to get at when he'd pitched the idea in the first place. They're basically doing the same things they kinda do, except with a label.

And kissing, maybe. God. Lots and lots of PDA and kissing. With _Soonyoung_. Wonwoo honestly doesn't know how to deal with that.

But Wonwoo can't really tell Soonyoung that the reason he clams up and freezes around other people is that it's different when they're out in the open — at home, it's easier to indulge in the intimacy without a label. Out there, it's like the whole world's watching his every move and they just _know_ how desperate he is, grasping at straws while making it look like Soonyoung's doing him a favor. He can't stand it.

"What's wrong with dating me?" Soonyoung splutters, affronted, as Wonwoo makes a complicated face the day after Soonyoung officially made a deal with the devil called Chan. What indeed. The irony gods are killing him.

" _Everything_ ," Wonwoo sighs, aggrieved.

Years of being around Wonwoo have either made Soonyoung impervious to his more ascerbic moments, or he's just gotten good at pretending it's nothing. Either way, Soonyoung just rolls his eyes and drinks his juice.

"And they call _me_ dramatic," Soonyoung mutters.

Wonwoo's got a scathing comeback on the tip of his tongue, only he gets a bit distracted by Soonyoung opening his mouth wide, trying to cram a sandwich he can't be bothered to cut up into tinier pieces into his mouth. It should be gross and a huge turn-off, especially with how the mayonnaise oozes past the gap between the bread slices and sticks to the corner of Soonyoung's mouth, but a traitorous part of Wonwoo still exercises poor and cringe-worthy judgment when all he can think of is how cute it looks, like a chipmunk trying to store nuts into its cheeks.

He wants to strangle something and maybe beat a pillow into submission just for that thought. He settles for squeezing the stress ball he'd picked up from Miniso when Soonyoung was scouting around for couple items to fuel the lie.

"You're a horrible liar, though," Wonwoo points out. "We'd convince no one."

"I think you're underestimating my skills in being romantic."

"I don't really trust someone who relies on anime and manga for pointers in love."

"CLAMP's given me all the life lessons I need."

"I don't think CLAMP's a great reference for it, either." Wonwoo closes his eyes. "Especially if your idea of romance is eating out on someone else's tab."

"It's the principle of the thing, Wonwoo," says Soonyoung, impatiently. "Keep up."

"You do realize we already spend almost every waking moment together, right?"

"Exactly!"

"Soonyoung, you have literally _zero_ experience dating."

"What do you mean I have no experience — I've slept with someone before! You were there!"

Unfortunately. He looks away from the vanilla milkshake Soonyoung's slurping up, trying to forget the mental flashbacks of Soonyoung's stuttered groans echoing through the walls, or the self-satisfied way he'd limped around the apartment the next day. "Hooking up isn't dating, Soonyoung."

"Just shove my pathetic love life into my face, thanks," says Soonyoung, lower lip sticking out in defiance, the same way he does whenever he knows he's heading down the losing side of the argument with Wonwoo. He puffs out his cheeks, pouting at Wonwoo. "Don't you wanna pop my relationship cherry, Wonwoo-yah?"

Wonwoo slams his forehead against the surface of the table. "Why did we decide to have this conversation in the middle of a family restaurant again?"

"Now's a good a time as any to ask you on a date," says Soonyoung. With an impish smile, he continues, "Who knows? You might teach me a thing or two about love, Jeon."

God, as if that makes it any better. "A _fake_ date," Wonwoo reminds him, weakly. Soonyoung rolls his eyes.

"Semantics," says Soonyoung. He holds out his pinky, the way he used to when they were still in elementary school and far from the definition of close, offering to teach Wonwoo how to ride a bike and promptly letting go of the saddle. It's a wonder Wonwoo still found any redeeming qualities in him enough to learn to love him. This is why Wonwoo has trust issues. "I'll even get you a ring if you say yes."

"A ring and all the favors I want for the rest of our lives," says Wonwoo. " _Without_ you saying no."

"And risk you making me do something embarrassing on my wedding day?" mutters Soonyoung. "Can't you at least make it a couple of days?"

"A decade."

"A week."

"A year."

"Two weeks."

"Half a year."

" _A month_ , tops."

"Make it three," says Wonwoo. He extends his pinky, holding it out until it brushes the side of Soonyoung's, " _and_ you have to cook for me instead of making me call for food deliveries all the time."

"Fine," says Soonyoung, "but you have to stop complaining about me using your stuff, _and_ you have to make an effort to not make fun of me all the time."

"Why do I feel like I'm the one on the losing end of this bargain?"

"If we're gonna date, we're gonna have to make it convincing," says Soonyoung, with a scowl. "You're supposed to act like you're desperately in love with me!"

 _But I already am_ , Wonwoo thinks, the reminder of it making something small and tightly-wound in his chest sag and deflate, some slow, sad, aching thing he's never been able to get rid of completely. "Okay," says Wonwoo, biting his lip. "But no kissing."

"But—"

"No," says Wonwoo, voice firm and brooking no argument, even at Soonyoung's stubbornness. "No kissing. Not for show."

Soonyoung looks crestfallen at that, but luckily, he doesn't push it. Wonwoo wonders what his face must look like, then. If any of the panic and dread's seeping out of him just yet. If Soonyoung can read him.

"You drive a hard bargain, Wonwoo-sshi," says Soonyoung. He purses his lips and links their fingers together, a light, tender touch that has Wonwoo's chest heaving with a sigh. "Deal."

 

 

(Soonyoung ends up putting a cheap knockoff ring he'd found online on Wonwoo's finger a couple of days later.

Strangely enough, Wonwoo can't bring himself to take it off.)

 

 

"Sorry we're late," says Soonyoung, in between gulps of air and wiping the sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand. He shoves Wonwoo unceremoniously into the booth right across Mingyu, indifferent to Wonwoo's grunt of annoyance. " _Someone_ slept through his alarm and took _forever_ to wake up."

"Wasn't that you?" Wonwoo gripes, brows knitted together.

"I'm pretty sure I woke up before you did, Wonwoo-yah," says Soonyoung, returning his frown with a lofty smirk. "I mean, _I_ wasn't the one that rolled off of bed and onto the floor when I got pushed off."

 _That's because I had my eyes closed pretending I was still asleep when you did it_ , Wonwoo wants to retort, but he only gets as far as opening his mouth before he shuts it again soon after. It's probably a bad idea to inadvertently confess that he'd woken up to Soonyoung spooning him and tracking drool all over his neck, and _then_ spent the rest of the time watching him make that weird, chirruping noise while he slept, a cross between a snore and a huff that Wonwoo finds impossibly, regrettably endearing. He wants to punch himself in the face just for that thought.

It's an even worse idea to let him know he'd been doing it since seven in the morning, when Soonyoung had woken up a little before eight. Yeah. Uh. No. Not gonna happen.

Mistaking his silence for grudging agreement, Soonyoung tips his chin up and sneers, "I thought so." He turns to Mingyu, who's still looking at both of them with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. "I'm gonna go check out their menu. Do you want anything, Mingyu?"

"I think I'm good, hyung," says Mingyu, even as Wonwoo makes an unhappy sound at the back of his throat.

"I want coffee," says Wonwoo.

"I wasn't asking _you_ ," says Soonyoung.

"Make it brewed and black," says Wonwoo. "No sugar or cream."

"Got it— one cup of coffee as dark as your soul, coming right up," says Soonyoung, rolling his eyes.

Soonyoung slinks out of the booth with Wonwoo's wallet and his jacket over his arm; the asshole leaves his backpack on his seat, effectively taking up so much space Wonwoo has no choice but to tug it closer to him — just in case he comes back, forgets it's there and ends up sitting on the rest of Wonwoo's things, books he'd stuffed into Soonyoung's bag out of laziness. He'll have to remind Soonyoung to give it back before he winds up walking into class with nothing but his phone — last time he'd done that, Soonyoung had to sneak out of his own class just to drop by Wonwoo's, and the teasing look on Seungcheol's face when he'd seen Soonyoung flapping his arms out of the tiny window was enough to convince Wonwoo to never share a class with the asshats he called his friends ever again.

Unfortunately for him, he has a gen ed class with Mingyu and Seokmin in an hour, and he just can't _deal_ with a 10 AM class with them without caffeine in his system, much less breakfast. Ever since he'd complained about it to Soonyoung, Soonyoung had started imposing brunch twice a week, so that they could live through the semester outside of class without feeling the need to strangle each other. It's supposed to be therapeutic, but Wonwoo's not counting on that to be effective.

Especially when Mingyu keeps giving him an all-too knowing look. Mingyu knows _nothing_.

"What?" Wonwoo asks. "What are you looking at me like that for?"

"So," says Mingyu, eyebrows raised. "You and Soonyoung-hyung, huh?"

Crammed between the glass window and Soonyoung's bag blocking his exit, Wonwoo feels cornered and vulnerable, his suffering exposed to the ignorant passersby outside. "Don't even start," says Wonwoo, cutting him off before he can say something incredibly stupid and potentially embarrassing for Wonwoo. "I mean it, Mingyu."

"You know, you don't really have to skirt around it, hyung," says Mingyu, loftily. "If you're dating him, I'm totally not judging. I have a bet to cash in on, after all."

Wonwoo scowls.

"I'm actually not dating Soonyoung," says Wonwoo, truthfully, mostly because he really wants Mingyu's wallet to suffer more, with or without Soonyoung's (ill-gotten) victory.

"Liar," says Mingyu, loftily, but at Wonwoo's disbelieving snort, his expression changes to something more somber, more uncertain. "I know you're only saying this because you've lived in a constant state of denial for years, but don’t you think that your emotional constipation might actually be hurting Soonyoung-hyung?"

Wonwoo looks down at his hand, the same one with the knockoff Akatsuki ring that weighs heavily on his ring finger despite its price. Soonyoung probably got it on sale as a gag gift— he's, like, the worst person at keeping secrets and giving meaningful presents, ever. Who's the one hurting who in this scenario again?

"Why don't you fix your own love life first before you meddle into mine?" Wonwoo grouses, picking at a spot of peeling leather on the chair. "Don't think I haven't forgotten that _you've_ been milking this to get a date out of Minghao."

" _Please_ , we've been practically dating for months," says Mingyu, breezily. "This is just flirting."

As if Wonwoo even needs to know anything about their bizarre foreplay rituals, ugh. "I don't think it counts as dating if the other party doesn't know it's a date."

"Funny you should say that," says Mingyu, dryly. He's only saved from a chokehold when Soonyoung comes back struggling with a tray of steaming hot coffee and plates of pastries in hand. Lucky for him, Wonwoo doesn't want the staff to suffer from Soonyoung being a complete mess in the face of baked goods and beverages, and he doesn't really want to see anything upended on _his_ jacket, _shut the fuck up, Mingyu_.

"What?" Wonwoo hisses. "Stop looking at me like that!"

"Aww, young love. So sweet and so gross," Mingyu coos, giving him a shit-eating grin. "Always looking out for your boyfriend, aren't you, hyung?"

"He tries," says Soonyoung, putting a hand on Wonwoo's arm, presumably to stop him from lunging at Mingyu and strangling him with his bare hands. His grip on Wonwoo's arm tightens, just as he leans over to mutter _don't fuck this up_ into Wonwoo's ear.

Wonwoo doesn't stiffen at the feel of Soonyoung's breath on his earlobe, no, or the proprietary way Soonyoung lets his own arm loop around Wonwoo's into a loose, intimate hold. It's the threat, he thinks, skin buzzing and warm. Soonyoung's a dangerous guy.

"You're so cute I wanna barf," says Mingyu, gagging. He takes his phone out. "Now stay still— I wanna take a picture so I can get Minghao to admit he's been dead wrong the whole time."

"Unlimited meat," Soonyoung whispers to him, a vain effort at appeasement. "Free food. All the favors you want!"

At this rate, not even the opportunity of bossing Soonyoung around with the added benefit of having zero complaints is even going to be worth it. Wonwoo shoves a sausage roll into his mouth sullenly, and sighs.

 _Good boy_ , Soonyoung mouths, and Wonwoo pinches his thigh just for that.

 

 

In retrospect, this is probably how Wonwoo's troubles _really_ started:

He gets a call from Mingyu at half-past ten in the evening, and he almost jumps at the sound of the notification coming from his phone. When he sees who it is, he's sorely tempted to just ignore it in favor of a night of peace and quiet, but then the paranoid part of him that's constantly suspicious of anyone and anything starts thinking about what would happen if Mingyu happened to be stuck in a ditch somewhere, and now he'd _never_ get his notes from the lectures the asshat missed back.

(Or, more realistically: he'd never get to copy Mingyu's notes and worksheets from the more numerous days Wonwoo skips their shared class.)

Then again, there's always Seokmin, but still. He's not taking any chances.

"Wonwoo-hyung," Mingyu howls into the front camera of his phone, the video grainy in the dim light of the apartment he's in, "tell everyone all about how you're one-step closer to getting into Soonyoung-hyung's pants!"

"What," says Wonwoo, flatly.

Someone lets out a loud, booming laugh — Seokmin, maybe, Wonwoo's not too sure, but if there's anyone Mingyu's dragged along with him in his foray into drunkenness on a school night, Wonwoo's betting good money that he's involved in it too. And judging from the sudden appearance of a more sober Minghao in Mingyu's drunken Facetime call, he's been dragged into it too.

"Sorry, hyung," says Minghao. "You know how he gets when he's had too many shots."

"You do realize it's only Tuesday, right?"

Minghao shrugs. "Seokmin says he takes tests better when he's nursing a hangover."

Wonwoo's not even going to _ask_. He looks down at Soonyoung, who's fallen fast asleep on his lap after the "most boring documentary in the world, oh my God, Wonwoo, would it kill you to let me _watch_ Music Bank for once?" Sometime in between the ruins of Egypt and the narrator positing a theory on alien lifeforms influencing civilization, Soonyoung had (mostly) gotten out of his funk and migrated from his sulking slouch on the other end of the couch and dragged a throw pillow over to nap on Wonwoo's thigh. Wonwoo's practically raising a cat.

"Okay," he says, softly, inching the phone away so he doesn't wake Soonyoung up. "I'm just gonna hang up—"

"Oh my god," Seokmin bellows, catching sight of something from Wonwoo's screen. Soonyoung's brows knit together, and Wonwoo almost lets out an exasperated curse as he tries to turn the volume down. "Is that _Soonyoung-hyung_ on your lap?" The corner of his lips twitches upwards, and he tries to hide a grin behind his hand, but Wonwoo can see it clear as day. "Lucky bastard."

"Is it really lucky if I can't feel my legs anymore," says Wonwoo.

"Oh, I wasn't talking about you," says Seokmin, leveling him with a knowing look. "I was talking about—"

Mingyu cuts him off with an impatient _ssshhhhh_. "I _told_ you guys for the hundredth time," Mingyu slurs, impassioned, voice loud even through Wonwoo's hiss of _shut the fuck up, you guys_! "They're dating. I swear to god, they really are."

"They can't even get through one day without threatening to murder each other," says Minghao. "What makes you think they are?"

"They share boyfriend jackets—"

"He's too lazy to do his own laundry," Wonwoo butts in.

"— They sleep in each other's beds a lot—"

"Also too lazy to change his sheets and make his bed," says Wonwoo.

"— They go on dates with each other all the time—"

"He doesn't wanna cook or do the dishes! We were getting _food_ ," Wonwoo splutters.

"Don't you and Minghao do those things too?" Seokmin wonders aloud.

"... Okay, so maybe they're not," Mingyu concedes, looking the tiniest bit crushed, if not petulant when Minghao snorts. "But you have to admit they're getting there!"

"No, we're really not," says Wonwoo, deadpan.

"No, they're not," says Minghao, as if Wonwoo hadn't said the exact same thing a few seconds ago. "If they were, I'd know."

Despite every cell in his body screaming at him to run, Wonwoo doesn't hang up just yet. "What's that supposed to mean?" Wonwoo asks, suspiciously.

"We share a locker room together," says Minghao. "I'd _know_ if his sex life weren't a dried-up husk. He'd be parading hickeys left and right like an exhibitionist if he did."

"Hypothetically, they _could_ be covered up under a towel," says Mingyu.

"With the amount of times I see him with his dick out, there's nothing hypothetical about his dry spell," Minghao scoffs.

"Oh god," says Wonwoo, closing his eyes. Don't think about it, he tells himself, already hyper-aware of how close Soonyoung's head is to his crotch. "Why am I listening to this argument again?"

" _Because_ ," Mingyu cuts in, only to lose his train of thought immediately. He gives Minghao this glazed-eyed look that Wonwoo's only seen on Junhui when he's looking at tiny baby animals on his phone or Jihoon, or Soonyoung right after his first fanmeet with an idol group, looking at the hand that had shaken overly moisturized palms like he didn't want to wash them ever again. Wonwoo hopes he doesn't look that gross, ever.

"Because...?" Wonwoo prompts him.

Mingyu snaps back to attention at his voice, and then looks away from Minghao with a scowl. "Because Minghao doesn't believe in true love," Mingyu insists, "and it's _your_ responsibility to make him see the light, Wonwoo-hyung!"

"Uh," says Wonwoo, "I'm pretty sure this is Stockholm Syndrome, not love, Mingyu."

Or, at least, he means to say it— Soonyoung makes a sudden sound at the back of his throat akin to a whimper, scooting closer and nuzzling his cheek against the inside of Wonwoo's thigh, and Wonwoo bites the inside of his cheek so hard he thinks he can taste blood. Mingyu just makes a triumphant noise, looking too confident in himself Wonwoo just wants to scream.

"Mingyu's got a point, Wonwoo-hyung," Seokmin finally interjects after being strangely quiet for a while now. "You've gotta do what you have to do for love."

" _True love_!" Mingyu insists. Soonyoung's nose brushes against the top button of Wonwoo's pants. Wonwoo just wants to Die.

"Yeah right," says Minghao, not even blinking. "I'd pay good money to see that."

"Wanna bet?"

"You're all delusional, _goodbye_ ," Wonwoo cuts them off, not even listening to the rest of the conversation. There are more pressing matters he needs to deal with, and one of them is really not helping redirect his blood circulation away from his nether regions.

When Soonyoung wakes up later on and tells him about this weird lucid _dream_ he's had about hearing Mingyu's drunken voice in his head going on about true love, Wonwoo shovels more instant noodles into his mouth and pretends not to hear anything. One more instance he's had to break the roommate code, and all because no one can mind their own business. He sighs and wonders when it'll die down and they get bored enough to move on to better, brighter things that don't have anything to do with Wonwoo's miserable love life.

That's one his mistakes early on, thinking they'd let it go. It's the first of many.

 

(Another mistake: not doing anything when Soonyoung tries to put a cheap knock-off ring he'd found online on Wonwoo's finger. He makes a grand show of it, getting down on one knee and making a cringe-worthy speech that Wonwoo's half-certain he's ripped off a Pokemon episode; it should be hilarious and gross and something to remember in the event Wonwoo's masochistic enough to agree to make a speech at his hypothetical future wedding and share to all Soonyoung's grandkids, but—

—Wonwoo just freezes.

He can't help the way his stomach lurches, like the (barely) burnt French toast Soonyoung had fried up is threatening to crawl back up his esophagus and back out of his mouth. There's a lot of things he feels, in that moment. Annoyance. Disappointment. Hurt, bleeding into the acid of his stomach.

There's a flutter of something else in there, too — that small, traitorous part of him, the one he tries to stamp out every time it wants to hope —

The ring glints under the light of the hallway, still a heavy weight on his finger. Still real. He holds his hand up against the light, and squints.

"I _knew_ you'd like it, you dork," Soonyoung crows, rubbing his hands together. "Your love for Naruto is really something else."

Soonyoung doesn't have to know it's not Naruto he loves most, no. He doesn't take it off, not even once. Not even at all.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, banging my head on my desk every time I extend the estimated chapter and word count: whyyyyyy does thiiiiis keep happeniiiiiiiing
> 
> happy holidays, let's be stressed for wonwoo together, haha ♥


	3. Chapter 3

"I think we should kiss."

Wonwoo's glad he's finished drinking from his water bottle by now, or else he would have spat out everything in Soonyoung's face. Then again, he winds up fumbling with the half-empty bottle in his fingers and spilling its contents onto Soonyoung, who lets out a high-pitched shriek as he scrambles away from his spot beside Wonwoo on the couch in an attempt to avoid the worst of it.

He doesn't manage to salvage his clothes, though; his shirt and shorts are drenched, clinging to his skin and making him shiver. He looks like an offended cat this way, hackles raised and scowling at Wonwoo. A very cute cat, especially when he'd curled up against Wonwoo's side, head pillowed by Wonwoo's thigh as he played a cheesy dating sim on his phone. He's complained about getting cockblocked by the tsundere in his quest for the ice queen-slash-childhood friend character, and between getting pestered into helping him rationalize multiple choice answers and getting pinched on the soft skin of his inner thigh, Wonwoo's practically tuned him out by plucking at the split ends on Soonyoung's bangs, badly needing a trim by now.

At least, until Soonyoung had decided to surprise him with _this_. Soonyoung says a lot of questionable shit on a daily basis, but this one just takes the cake for Wonwoo's daily quota of absurdity, enough to last him an entire month. (The last time was when he'd stumbled into Soonyoung providing Junhui (and Jihoon, by extension) an extremely graphic and detailed list of his kinks and curiosities, all of which did nothing to salvage the remnants of Wonwoo's fried brain all the while. No one understands his constant suffering.)

"Excuse me?" Wonwoo says, rubbing his mouth with the back of his palm. He touches the underside of his jaw, right where he can feel the thrum of his pulse point vibrating all too quickly. The stubble he hasn't shaved off yet is rough against his fingertips, but he can still feel the pulse of his artery all too keenly. "Did you just tell me you wanted to _kiss me_ , or were you just talking to your phone?"

"I didn't say I _wanted_ it," says Soonyoung, ears turning pink as his expression turns thunderous, displeased. Wonwoo would make fun of him for it, but he can feel the mortification as acutely as he'd tried hard to will away his half-boner when he'd tugged too hard at Soonyoung's scalp and Soonyoung had made a whimpering sound at the motion. "I just meant we should start kissing each other. _In public_."

Wonwoo pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling loudly. "That's not as enlightening as you think it sounds."

"I'm just _saying_ ," Soonyoung whines, picking at the hem of his shirt. He tugs it forward, letting the cotton expand as he sets himself in front of the electric fan, and Wonwoo tries not to peak at the hint of skin underneath. (Nope. Nuh uh. Not even gonna go there.) "Minghao _still_ isn't taking the bait. I've been pestering him into paying up, but he doesn't believe we're even going out."

"Because we're not," Wonwoo reminds him, stiffly. "Remember?"

Soonyoung makes a face, the same kind he makes whenever he thinks Wonwoo's actively trying to sabotage him— just like that last time he'd bought someone home and Wonwoo had ended up passive-aggressively vacuuming in the room adjacent at an ungodly hour just so he could wake them up and annoy the jerkface enough that he didn't need to sit through the awkward morning after routine and straight into the walk of shame without a repeat performance. Soonyoung hadn't even liked the guy that much, but the way he'd kept absent-mindedly scratching at the teeth-shaped bruise at the base of his throat had made Wonwoo want to _bite_ into his skin instead, just to get the marks to disappear.

(He'd bit him on his shoulder instead, half-playful, half-not. The hickey went away after a few days, but Wonwoo's stayed, lingering when he'd kept at it every time he whined about being hungry and the delivery guy taking way too long with their order. Soonyoung smacked him at first for it until he'd learned it was easier to ignore him.)

"Well, we don't want anyone else to find out about _that_ , do we?" Soonyoung says, dragging himself away from the fan long enough to slink over to Wonwoo's cagey perch on the other end of the couch. Purrs it, even, looking at Wonwoo with a crinkly-eyed smile that makes Wonwoo's heart flip-flop into his chest even as it simultaneously wants to drop into the pit of his belly and dissolve into stomach acid. Being in love is so gross. "Right, _boyfriend_?"

"Is that supposed to be your sexy face?" Wonwoo says, in an effort to decimate the choirs of imaginary angels celebrating in his brain (seriously, what the fuck, since when did he get so _sappy_?). And. Well. Partly to distract himself from how Soonyoung's still-damp shirt clings to his skin, doing little to conceal the hardened nubs on his chest from the cool air. Fuck. He never thought it'd be possible for his tongue to dry up even as the base of his mouth started to congeal with drool. "Because I really can't tell. You just look constipated."

" _You_ look constipated," Soonyoung retorts, rolling his eyes like the five year old he actually is. He launches himself onto Wonwoo without warning, cackling at Wonwoo's (mildly humiliating) squawk of protest, laughter growing more uncontrollable when he settles onto Wonwoo's lap and succeeds in making Wonwoo's eloquence die a tragic, fiery death in exchange for an excuse to snuggle. Looping his arms around the back of Wonwoo's head in a loose hold, he bumps his forehead against Wonwoo's and pouts at him head-on – the only way he'd ever get to with the few centimeters Wonwoo has on him, at the expense of Wonwoo's dick. "See? You really need to get that stick out of your ass. It makes you look like a grumpy kitten."

 _You're the kitten, not me_ , Wonwoo wants to say, but manages to reel _that_ thought back into the confines of his dumber comebacks in the face of a lapful of Soonyoung. He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he feels like his skin is gonna crack and bruise.

"Great, you froze up," says Soonyoung with a sigh. Wonwoo watches him worry at his lip, unsure. _Don't think about kissing him_ , he reminds himself, biting the inside of his cheek harder. _Don't_. "How are you gonna kiss me in front of Minghao if you can't even do basic PDA?"

 _What PDA, you've never even been in a relationship_ , Wonwoo thinks, half-bitter, half-triumphant. Never mind that he's spent a better part of the entire time he's known he was in love with the dumbass fencing him in and sticking close just to give dead-eyed looks at anyone even showing marginal interest in laughing at Soonyoung's jokes. No one laughs _that_ hard at Soonyoung's jokes unless they're after his ass. Or something.

A testament to the strength and purity of Wonwoo's love and erection, clearly. He _never_ laughs unless he can't help it, and only because he has to stifle the pressing urge to _bite_ Soonyoung's fucking cheeks. Ugh.

"You're heavy," says Wonwoo, voice rough. "Get off me."

 _Please get off me_ , that small, desperate part of his brain screams. _Please please please please_ please.

"The romance is dead," says Soonyoung, rolling off of him with a sigh. He kicks at Wonwoo's side, before reaching over for his phone on the side table. "We need to work on our skinship, Wonwoo-yah. You really suck at this whole boyfriend thing."

Wonwoo counts to thirty seconds in his head, before he excuses himself to go to the bathroom.This is the worst.

 

 

 _The thing is_ , if he and Soonyoung were really dating, the only sucking he'd do in a relationship would involve Soonyoung's dick and balls.

 _If_ they were dating, he'd never let Soonyoung leave their bed in the first week of the honeymoon period, eager to fuck out all the pent-up longing and tension from how many months spent watching Soonyoung fellate any and all phallic-shaped food items with his mouth and indiscriminately stealing Wonwoo's clothes without asking for permission, all loose hoodies and what should have been baggy sweatpants clinging to the curve of his ass, taut and taunting. Wonwoo's had one too many unwanted trips to the laundry room to wash out evidence of fantasizing about marking up his ass, or biting and nipping and _kneading_ , of spreading him open so he can eat him out, maybe, or rub his cock against the sensitive skin of his perineum; he'd draw it out, make Soonyoung squirm and sob into his pillow as he teased him, watch him rut against the surface of the bed leaking precome and sweat all over Wonwoo's sheets, the bow of his spine a beautiful arc, the planes of his skin and the geometry of his bones enough to power Wonwoo through college math for days on end. Soonyoung would rock back against Wonwoo's hips as Wonwoo lined up the tip of his cock to his rim, wet with lube and slick from when Wonwoo had worked him with three fingers for what felt like an excruciating, burning eternity, and he'd come with a surprised yelp when Wonwoo finally, _finally_ sunk into him and fucked him into the mattress, greedy and hungry and so, so desperately, agonizingly in love with him, in love with his body, in love with the stutter and mangled gasps of Wonwoo's name on his lips, _yes, Wonwoo, oh god, please, let me come again, let me come, ah, ah_ , ah—

"So you didn't _kiss_ him?" The voice of brutal, depressing reality promptly shatters fantasy number 104 in the form of Lee Chan's blank-faced judgment, and Wonwoo feels irritation prickle at the back of his neck at the disturbance.

"Fuck off," Wonwoo mutters, refusing to open his eyes. If he tries hard enough, maybe Chan will go away, and then he can go back to fueling his sexual frustration with erotica fodder. Soonyoung in his head _was_ always needy and ready to go, refractory time practically non-existent with how he'd kept panting for Wonwoo's dick in between sneaking heated kisses and _I love you_ s in the afterglow. Just Wonwoo's dick. Ergo, the fantasy. "I was trying to be _morally upright_."

"Or you were too chicken shit to do it," Chan scoffs, popping a grape into his mouth. He promptly spits out a seed, making a face, and chucks it into the pot of the fake flower pot outside the café they're in. All of Wonwoo's friends are disgusting. "That was, like, _the perfect moment_. He was asking for it."

"Stab me deeper with a knife, why don't you," Wonwoo mutters.

Chan picks up another grape, biting down on it in frustration. "You could have slipped some tongue in! _He wouldn't have cared_!"

"I know," Wonwoo groans. "Don't remind me!"

"Now we know why this relationship has gone nowhere, then," says Chan, with a deeply aggrieved sigh. " _Clearly_ it's not for lack of Soonyoung-hyung trying. You two could be porn actors starring in an AV together and still you'd find a way to do everything _but_ bump dicks with him."

"He could be a camboy for pay," says Wonwoo, eyes glazing over at the thought. Fantasy number 69 is another favorite, but then he'd have to share the view with a hundred other filthy perverts on the internet, so never mind. He's never been one for sharing the things he wants the most, especially if it involved Soonyoung.

"Not the takeaway I needed you to pick up on, but sure, whatever floats your boat," says Chan, shrugging. He looks down at his notes, valiantly ignoring whatever expression Wonwoo must be making with his increasingly uncooperative face muscles. His resting bitch face doesn't really hold up when he starts thinking about Soonyoung _like that_. "Seriously, hyung, why don't you just confess?"

"And have him reject me and lord it over me for the rest of our lives?" Wonwoo balks. " _No fucking way_."

"He's _really_ not that much of an asshole," says Chan, rolling his eyes.

Wonwoo keeps his mouth shut. Chan doesn't understand. Soonyoung's been _waiting_ for a chance to give Wonwoo his comeuppance since they were _teenagers_ and Wonwoo had always been the one getting confessed to or given chocolate to for Valentine's Day (never mind that Wonwoo always gave half his stash to Soonyoung, who would angrily chew on the more expensive brand names and stew in his sulking like a jealous brat).

("Someday, you'll fall in love with someone who's immune to your pretty face," fifteen year old Soonyoung insisted, stuffing his mouth with a homemade biscuit that he promptly spat out. "And _then_ you'll be sorry and regret taunting me with all of your disgusting homemade pastries!"

"… You think my face is pretty?" Wonwoo repeated, blankly.

Soonyoung threw him a dirty look and an empty wrapper for good measure.)

If only Wonwoo had fallen in love with someone kinder, someone less prone to cruelty with his indifference. Wonwoo must be a closet masochist, pining like a fucking tree all the time. If there were a universe were Soonyoung felt significantly more for him than he did at the moment, Wonwoo would jump to that fictional timeline in a heartbeat.

Realizing he's getting nowhere with an unyielding Wonwoo, Chan shakes his head and tries to make him see reason and logic again. "You do realize that your continued resistance against PDA is futile and Soonyoung-hyung's just gonna take this on like a challenge, right?"

Wonwoo knows. God, he knows. Knowing Soonyoung's overly competitive nature, Wonwoo's not sure if he dreads the idea of it, or anticipates it. He leans back on his seat, contemplating the cloudless sky with a squint. "Is it too late to fake my death and change my identity to get him to stop?"

"You'd never go through with it," says Chan, chuckling. "You'd miss him too much."

Wonwoo rubs his face with his palms and sighs. Chan's right. He's so fucked.

Chan just laughs at him, but not unkindly. With a condescending pat to the top of his head, Chan smirks. "For what it's worth, I hope I win."

"So I can be lonely and single forever?" Wonwoo despairs.

"No," says Chan, making a face as he pretends to inspect his nails. "So you don't have to fake it if it's real."

"You're my new favorite," Wonwoo decides, strangely touched.

"Thanks, hyung," says Chan. "Just don't break Soonyoung-hyung's back next month. I need him alive to help with the choreo for my final."

 

 

Backed with the seemingly undaunted confidence of Chan, Wonwoo resolves to put up with Soonyoung's antics for the next few days with newfound willpower and a frantic prayer to the heavens to will any and all untimely erections away. While it's definitely going to be a point in Wonwoo's favor if their asshole friends get the slightest inkling that Soonyoung doing anything beyond _breathing_ turns him on, it's not gonna save him from any unlucky passersby that decide to report him for public indecency if he pops a boner in the middle of the common room at the international students' dorm just because Soonyoung figured it would be an _excellent_ idea to sit on his lap and cuddle in front of Minghao in all their (fake) sickeningly sweet glory.

Like. You know. An actual couple. Or so Soonyoung hisses under his breath at Wonwoo when Wonwoo opens his mouth to protest. "Just go with it and backhug me," Soonyoung demands, clutching at the front of Wonwoo's jacket with a white-knuckled grip. " _Now_."

"But Minghao's not even looking," Wonwoo protests, even as he sags into Soonyoung's touch and reaches around to awkwardly loop his arms around Soonyoung in a loose hold. Like one of the kittens Junhui used to feed in the back of their freshman dorm, Soonyoung paws at the strings of his hoodie, already distracted. For a moment, Wonwoo has to debate pushing him off just in case he pulls the strings too tight and makes him look like a disgruntled turtle in the process, but Soonyoung seems content to toy with him like this, perfectly serene as he burrows into Wonwoo's arms, impervious to his internal screaming and the pleas for help he tries to channel Hansol or Seokmin when Minghao excuses himself briefly to go to the communal kitchen.

Hansol and Seokmin, unfortunately, are too busy reading through their notes for a shared group project in a gen ed class to even bother. His friends are all useless. Wonwoo gives up on even trying and just presses his nose against the top of Soonyoung's head, sniffing him.

"Did you use my shampoo again?" He asks, nose wrinkling.

"I ran out," Soonyoung mumbles, ears turning pink. When he catches sight of Minghao emerging with a freshly-microwaved bowl of popcorn and a bottle of soda, he clears his throat and pitches his voice higher, taking on an annoyingly syrupy tone. "Don't you like it when I smell like you, Wonwoo-yah?"

Wonwoo chokes on his spit, startled; he has to hide his coughing and hacking against Soonyoung's nape in case Minghao catches the look of alarm and panic in his eyes, scenting weakness like a piranha. Hansol doesn't even look up from his readings, headphones still attached to his ears, but Seokmin tries and fails to hide a smirk behind his palm and wags his eyebrows at both of them.

"Kinky," says Seokmin. "But also mildly nauseating. No one needs to know about all the shower sex you've been having, hyung."

"Wonwoo's _very_ flexible," says Soonyoung, tipping his face up to nose along the shell of Wonwoo's ear. "Right, babe?"

"Right," Wonwoo croaks out, shivering. He tightens his hold around Soonyoung as a warning, but Soonyoung seems to take it as encouragement instead. Is this what having a bunch of fire ants gnaw at your skin and try to eat your intestines alive feels like? Because Wonwoo is definitely ready for the earth to swallow him up anytime now, thanks.

Minghao snorts, setting the bowl down in front of Hansol and Seokmin with a slam that makes Hansol jump in his seat and push his headphones off of his ears. "Bullshit," says Minghao. "I can smell you lying from a mile away."

Wonwoo makes the mistake of looking down at Soonyoung instead of meeting Minghao's frown head-on. He's puffing his cheeks out now. _Fuck_. He looks back at Minghao, hoping against all hope that he looks calmer and a lot less frazzled and attacked than he feels.

"You're just jealous Mingyu went on a group date and left you to slave away on a Saturday," says Soonyoung, tone biting. "If you didn't want me to bring my _boyfriend_ along, you could have just _said_."

"He's not even your boyfriend," says Minghao, rolling his eyes. "Grow up."

"Do you want me to suck face with him to prove it?" Soonyoung asks, stroppy now.

"Please don't," says Seokmin, voicing Wonwoo's more rational sentiments. The less rational and more 'perpetually horny and deranged' side of Wonwoo roars out the opposite. His fingers twitch at the front of Soonyoung's shirt, and he has to fist the fabric to steel himself even as Seokmin plows on with a laugh. "I'm pretty sure everyone already knows you guys are dating. Minghao's just in denial."

"They haven't even kissed," Minghao points out, for the nth time in the past week. Wonwoo stiffens. "That's not what I call dating."

"We totally kiss!" Soonyoung cries out. "What do you think we even do at home if we're not fucking on every surface?"

"Let's not get carried away and jump to exhibitionism," Wonwoo mutters, feeling light-headed. Bad thoughts. Flush them out. Don't think about Soonyoung in bed. _Don't_.

Soonyoung turns to him with a thunderous glare, the same kind Soonyoung gives him whenever Wonwoo tries to be the rational person for a change and pull him back from any fights when bravado overtakes him. "You're supposed to be on _my_ side," he reminds him quietly, displeased. " _Barbeque, Wonwoo_!"

Wonwoo keeps his lips pressed tightly, and Soonyoung huffs and tries to hide the pinch he gives Wonwoo's side under the pretense of snuggling closer. Really, the only reason Soonyoung's still alive and in one piece until now is because of Wonwoo. If Wonwoo didn't constantly bait him and redirect his annoyance, Soonyoung would be in far more dangerous situations.

(Wonwoo's not fucking tsundere, Junhui. He's _considerate_ and _sensitive_ and he's totally _not_ doing it to monopolize Soonyoung's attention, thanks.)

"Prove it, then," says Minghao, sounding bored.

Soonyoung levels a glare at him, but Minghao just shrugs. _If there is a god_ , Wonwoo thinks, dread pooling in his stomach, _now is the perfect time for Mingyu to get flat out wasted and drunk-call Minghao, or any distraction, really. I promise to never think about Soonyoung choking on my dick ever again_. Please.

Because there is, apparently, no god, nothing happens but Soonyoung and Minghao making faces at each other, and Hansol and Seokmin studiously ignoring them all. Maybe it's the irony gods that are laughing at Wonwoo instead, karmic retribution for all those times he's thought about Soonyoung in less-than-innocent ways. A bolt of lightning would be a quicker death than the awkwardness that ensues.

With a loud exhale, Soonyoung turns back to Wonwoo with a determined expression. He's always, always been an idiot when it comes to winning and hedging bets, and Wonwoo should have known, _he really should have known_ that they'd end up at this point one way or the other. Soonyoung tugs at his jacket strings, tugging him closer, and Wonwoo closes his eyes, dreading the worst.

It would probably be kinder if Soonyoung just planted a loud, obnoxious kiss to his mouth then and there. Maybe he could have laughed it off and just pecked the corner of his lips, barely nothing. It's more excruciating for Wonwoo, when Soonyoung noses at the column of his throat, lips soft and plump against Wonwoo's skin, searching. This close, Wonwoo can feel Soonyoung's eyelashes brush against his cheek, fluttering, and it's a heated trail from his neck, to his jaw, to his cheek, and then nothing. Soonyoung's lips hover over his, faltering for a moment like he's not sure what it is exactly he's about to do or if he should even do it; Wonwoo squeezes his eyes shut tighter and decides for him, surging forward to kiss him.

Their noses bump into each other awkwardly, but Soonyoung's pained exhale gets swallowed up by Wonwoo's mouth without another word. _No kissing for show_ , he thinks with a bitter smile, but it doesn't matter; Soonyoung's hands frame his cheeks and pull him in closer, like it's real.

(But it's not. It's not. And he hates it.)

 

 

Kissing is a learned behavior.

At least, Wonwoo thinks it is. He doesn't know what kissing was like outside of his mom, aunts or older cousins coaxing him for a peck every Chuseok or New Year, always on the receiving end and suffering through the lipstick smudges and the traces of wetness against his cheek, his lips, annoying.

Soonyoung used to whine a lot about Wonwoo getting all the attention, even from his own cousins, but it wasn't like Wonwoo ever asked to be doted on. If anything, it's Soonyoung that's the luckier one, getting dragged out to play by more kids their age and barely looking back at Wonwoo beyond the token whine of _come on, Wonwoo-yah, I'm gonna ditch you if you take too long_ even when he knew Wonwoo was cornered by a gaggle of Soonyoung's relatives. It's why he's so good with girls, Soonyoung keeps saying every time— he's practically immune to their fawning.

But a friendly peck is different from a kiss that means more, no. Wonwoo knows the difference.

Wonwoo's had his first kiss stolen a long time ago in middle school by a girl from another class; she'd left a love letter with Soonyoung and made him so overjoyed at the prospect of being the object of someone else's affections before his hopes and dreams were shattered with the neat hangul of Wonwoo's name at the back of the envelope, and Wonwoo didn't refute it when he'd come back to the classroom with his lips still tingling with the strange, sticky feeling of lip gloss as his classmates crowded around him and teased him about his new girlfriend.

In a way, Wonwoo wonders if this is karma playing with him, if maybe this is supposed to be penance for the crushed expression on Soonyoung's face that day, the precedent of more confessions to come and Wonwoo not having enough of a spine to reject them. Maybe that's what makes it so hard to pluck up the courage to just tell Soonyoung he doesn't want this; he's always, always been going for the path of least resistance, even when he doesn't want to.

Kissing Soonyoung, too, is easy; the cracked edges of his lips, the solid weight of his tongue— they're all tangible, real, and it makes Wonwoo burn with want. He draws him closer, hefting him up over his lap and drowning out his squeak; Soonyoung's hands grip his shoulders for balance, hips buckling dangerously close to his crotch.

"Wonwoo, I— _mmph_ " Soonyoung breathes out, but Wonwoo drags him back, groaning and ignoring Seokmin's sarcastic, "Way to go, Minghao, now they're _really_ going at it."

"Shut up," says Minghao, testily, and a part of Wonwoo thinks that maybe he should stop by now, that it's enough, but it's not, it's never enough, not when he's starving.

With a sigh, Soonyoung rocks down against him, grinding, and it's too much. He can't breathe.

That's the danger of repression. He wants, and he wants, and he wants, and now that it's there, it's like a dam's burst, like he's struggling to gain the fill he's deprived himself of and comes up still hungry. Something in his chest is clenching, choking him up. Around Soonyoung, he's a mess through and through, and he just wants to wreck him in equal amounts, just to know it's not just him that's struggling to stay sane.

It's Soonyoung tangling their fingers together that brings him back, metal clinking against the band on his own. The ring on Soonyoung's finger is cold to the touch, sobering; when Soonyoung pulls him closer for a deeper kiss, it digs into Wonwoo's fingers, cutting.

The roommate code. _The roommate code_. He thinks about all the things he should have told Soonyoung before this, and how many times he's broken it.

Even now, it's a lie.

His eyes flutter open, and the flush of pink on Soonyoung's cheeks, the redness of his mouth, like it's been ravaged— he tries to take a picture with his mind, the last time he'll ever see it, maybe. The realization sinks into his gut like a sad, heaving thing he's too selfish not to keep.

He pushes him away.

"There," he says, voice sounding rough and distant to his own ears, even as Soonyoung blinks at him in a daze, confused; there's a question in there Wonwoo's not sure he can answer. _What was that, Wonwoo-yah_ , says the quiver of his lips, the tentative press of his fingertips against his own lower lip. _What was that supposed to mean?_

He looks at the rest of the voyeurs instead, for his own sanity. They're all looking at him like he's grown a second head, except for Minghao who just looks less unimpressed and more calculating. Scary. "Are you happy now?"

Minghao primly shovels a palmful of popcorn down Seokmin's gaping mouth, still slack-jawed at the show, and blinks innocently. He purses his lips, the way he usually does when he's about to say something blunt in the least filtered way possible, things that drive Mingyu crazy in all sorts of ways.

"Not bad for a first kiss," he says, eyebrow arched at both of them. "You should practice more next time."

Bastard.

 

 

"You're good at kissing."

They're walking home from Minghao's dorm with a healthy foot of space between them now that there's no one around to scrutinize their every move. Soonyoung had held his hand from their awkward tangle of limbs until a good distance away from the entrance of the building before letting go of his palm like it was a burning piece of coal, grimy and hot to the touch. They'd tried to laugh it off, but it had been stilted, tense. The silence that followed was even more nerve-wracking than that time he'd caught Soonyoung's one night stand sneaking out and realized who, exactly, the fucktard was.

His fingers clench into a fist at his side, shaking. Even now, just thinking about it, he still wants to punch him. But he can't. He can't. He doesn't have the right to get angry, not when he's not Soonyoung's, and Soonyoung's not his.

"What did you say?" He asks, turning to look back at Soonyoung, mouth dry.

Soonyoung's looking at the concrete, glowering at it like he's mulling over something that's tugging at his brain insistently. "I said, you're a good kisser," he mutters, ears turning pink.

The compliment makes Wonwoo's chest squeeze even as his lips tremble at the reminder, bittersweet. "Thank you," he says, stiffly. How does someone even respond to something like this? "You too."

It's the wrong thing to say, from the way Soonyoung's shoulders slump. "You don't have to lie," says Soonyoung, groaning. He rubs his face with his palms, like he's trying to scrub something out of his skin. "I was a total flop. Minghao didn't even buy it for one bit." He hesitates, crossing his arms. "It really wasn't cool of me to just— just— rut against you like some god damn teenager and—"

The reminder of it makes Wonwoo feel like his jacket is too stifling, like someone's just tied the strings together and strangled him with it. Even now, looking at how miserable Soonyoung looks, rambling on and on about how he's sorry Wonwoo had to go through that, how he knows that they talked about it and even _promised_ each other they wouldn't do it, it still happened, Wonwoo just wants to stalk over to him and pull him close enough to hold him just like he did not even hours ago, even just pretend.

But he can't. He's frozen, rooted in his spot. "Do you wanna break up?"

Soonyoung stops rambling, then, looking up at Wonwoo sharply, eyes wide. "What?"

It's strange, to be on the receiving end of Soonyoung's scrutiny. A lot of times, Soonyoung complains that he looks like a creeper when he's resting his eyes, but the truth is he's always looking at Soonyoung, watching. It's different now, to have Soonyoung look back at him like he can't see anything else.

What a shitty price to pay, just for that wish.

"Maybe we should just give up, then," says Wonwoo, frowning

Soonyoung opens his mouth. "But—"

"If it's barbeque you're after, you can get a free dinner anytime, especially if you start dating someone else," Wonwoo continues, the words tasting bitter on his tongue even as he forms them. Soonyoung's face is unreadable, unnerving. Just the idea of it is making his skin prickle, setting him on edge, but this is just self-preservation. He'll need to hold onto what little dignity he has left, if not his pride. "You know, I have a few people in mind I can set you up with. Maybe you'll like going out with—"

"Wonwoo," Soonyoung says, voice icier than that time he'd been so mad at Wonwoo he hadn't wanted to speak to him for days. "Shut the fuck up before I punch your pretty face and rip you a new one."

Wonwoo closes his mouth.

"I'm gonna pretend you never said anything," says Soonyoung, deceptively calm as he stalks over to Wonwoo. "We're going to go home, eat dinner, take a shower, and go to sleep. And when we wake up, we're going to fucking practice making out with each other enough to make Minghao's fucking brain explode, and _then_ we're gonna go eat barbeque with our hard-earned cash."

"Soonyoung—"

Soonyoung reaches out with a fisted hand, and Wonwoo flinches, preparing for the worst even as he keeps his feet planted still. _Do it_ , he thinks, closing his eyes. _Just punch me already. It's the least you could do_.

It doesn't come. Instead, Soonyoung grabs onto the back of his jacket, pulling him closer. Wonwoo squeezes an eye open, and another; Soonyoung's quiet, shaking the way he does when he's too full of feeling but can't get it out completely and looking resolutely at his feet like a kid sulking over a stolen toy, selfish to the end.

"I'm not dating anyone else, got it?" He says, sounding choked up about it, even if Wonwoo can't imagine why he'd sound as miserable as Wonwoo feels right now. "You're a fucking idiot, Jeon Wonwoo."

 _Yeah_ , Wonwoo thinks, even as he can feel something in his heart slotting into place with a soft, final _click_. _I really am an idiot for you, Kwon Soonyoung._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looooord when will the plot stop spiraling out of control /)_(\


	4. Chapter 4

Soonyoung doesn't kiss him again after that night.

It's not for lack of trying, though— the minute they'd shut the front door behind them, Soonyoung had grabbed fistfuls of Wonwoo's shirt and tried to plant one on him with a determination he'd only reserved for ideas that required a lot of dumb luck and liquid courage, but Wonwoo had fended off his advances by slapping his palms against the sides of Soonyoung's face and smushing his cheeks enough to butt their heads together.

The resulting pain and bruise on their foreheads hadn't spared him from a migraine and Soonyoung's whining, but it _had_ spared him the danger of a heart attack. It's enough of a sign for Soonyoung, at least, and Soonyoung had withdrawn to his own room grumbling and licking the wounds of the rejection by stealing Wonwoo's 3DS and saving a new game over his existing Pokemon save file, that little asshole. Still, Wonwoo doesn't have the courage to storm over to his room and kick his ass— if he gets even remotely close to Soonyoung, Wonwoo's not confident in his self-control _or_ Soonyoung's to keep it from veering off course.

At least now that Soonyoung's mildly pissed off at him, he doesn't have to deal with Soonyoung trying anything more than a playful air kiss or, at worse, a sloppy smack on the cheek in public. What he _does_ have to contend with is the constant fear that Soonyoung would make good on his intentions to give everyone with eyes a show (that fucking exhibitionist) and plop himself down neatly on Wonwoo's lap one day without warning, nuzzling against him like a needy pet. That, and the looks his friends keep trading each other when they think Wonwoo and Soonyoung are too caught up in their own world to notice. The assholes don't even know the meaning of subtlety even if it hits them.

And then there's Junhui.

"Morning, sunshine," says Junhui, far too chirpy early in the morning. He doesn't even blink at Wonwoo when he slides into the seat beside him ten minutes late for class and barely making it in time for attendance, too used to his perpetual lateness. Thank fucking god for large classes and Junhui's ability to forge his signature at this point, or else Wonwoo would have been kicked out of class from using up all of his allowable absences a long time ago. "Had fun with Soonyoung last night?"

Forget Minghao— Junhui's the worst. Wonwoo contemplates the pen in his hand, wondering if it would be in bad form to attempt to stab Junhui with it for being a gossip whore, but then he takes a look at the knowing glint in Junhui’s eye and promptly decides that maybe he’d be better off stabbing himself instead.

Feigning ignorance sounds like the most dignified course of action, though, if not the less violent option. He clears his throat and pulls a filler out of his bag, averting his eyes from meeting Junhui’s expectant ones. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Your hair's a mess," Junhui points out.

"I have bad bedhead and didn't have time to find a comb."

"Your shirt's buttoned up wrong."

"I was in a rush."

"It’s too tight on you. That shirt is Soonyoung’s, isn’t it?"

"We live together, so sue me."

Junhui hums under his breath, eyes still on the whiteboard where their econ professor is talking about how to measure relative deprivation. "The hickey on your throat is a _very_ nice touch. I thought you were the one with teething problems, not Soonyoung."

Wonwoo slaps a hand over the side of his neck, feeling his face flush. Junhui sighs, and gestures to the other side. Wonwoo, mortified, covers the other part with his free hand and sinks into his seat.

"It could have been a bug bite," Wonwoo protests under his breath, sinking lower into his seat. Junhui smirks, fingers steepled under his chin as he leers at him.

"But it's not," says Junhui. Wonwoo looks down at the strings of his hoodie and considers strangling himself with it instead.

It's not a lie; Wonwoo's prided himself on being a passably okay actor, poker face ready to make up for the spluttering awkwardness he's always felt at being under scrutiny, but anything connected to Soonyoung just throws the pretense out of the window.

He knows the rumors have made the rounds. He's gotten one too many messages from the rest of their friend circle in the past couple of days more than he knows what to do with, and left all of them unread at Soonyoung's sharp-eyed behest.

Then again, it's got less to do with Soonyoung asking and more along the lines of Wonwoo getting horribly distracted. After the weird not-fight they'd had after that kiss at Minghao's dorm, they'd settled into a bizarre sitcom where Soonyoung does the thing where most of the time he pretends Wonwoo doesn't exist because he's still mad at him, and the rest he spends trying to permanently sear himself into Wonwoo's side, preferably with the use of his mouth or fingers.

("I'm working on getting you more comfortable with skinship," Soonyoung said last night, fingers toying with the waistband of Wonwoo's shorts; he'd sat down into Wonwoo's lap in the middle of Wonwoo cramming a paper and nearly gave him a heart attack in the process, and _then_ he'd definitely single-handedly given Wonwoo an out-of-body experience trying to suck a hickey into the base of Wonwoo's neck. "Now stay still— you're making this harder than it has to be."

" _I'm_ the one making things hard?" Wonwoo had croaked out, but his traitorous fingers settled against his hips, proprietary even through the nerves. A part of Wonwoo whispered that whatever boundaries they've talked about prior to The Kiss were disastrously dying a fiery death right at that moment, but the selfish part of him really didn't have the heart to bring it up.

He kept him close instead and let him mouth at Wonwoo's skin like it wasn't enough, even as the scant remaining bits of Wonwoo's rationality kept screaming at him to stop. It's fine, he thought, desperately. They're fine. He's just going to hell for this one when this entire mess is over.

Maybe.)

"Shut up," Wonwoo grumbles, glaring at Junhui as he pushes his hoodie up to cover his neck.

"Young love," says Junhui, wistfully. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

"Trouble in paradise?" Wonwoo snarks back. Junhui opens his mouth with eyes alight, and Wonwoo grimaces, already regretting the insinuation. "Never mind. I don't wanna know what freaky stuff you and Jihoon get up to in bed."

"My intentions towards Jihoon are pure and consensual," says Junhui, loftily. "Aren't yours?"

"You really aren't as nice as everyone thinks you are," Wonwoo mutters.

"Jihoonie thinks so too," says Junhui, with an agreeable nod.

Wonwoo turns back to glaring holes at the front of the lecture hall, intent on focusing on everything _but_ his friends' love lives or Soonyoung. The heat of Soonyoung's mouth on his skin still burns, though; it's hard to pay attention to anything except that.

 

 

Days pass. Contrary to Junhui's beliefs, Wonwoo doesn't end up sexing Soonyoung up every waking moment of their lives, because. You know. They aren't even dating. But no one seems to detect Wonwoo's slow descent into a mental breakdown over the biggest lie he's ever roped himself into.

So that leaves him hanging out with Chan more often than not, especially when Soonyoung spends half the time ignoring Wonwoo in favor of hanging out with other friends, and the other half playing pretend. On a normal day, Soonyoung would be inviting himself into the picture, all the better to dote over Chan and annoy Wonwoo in public, but he's _still_ holding an imagined, petty grudge over an equally fake proposition that _he_ should never have brought it up to begin with.

Honestly, Wonwoo's suffering from so much mood whiplash that he's questioning every bit of his sanity that even rejected Soonyoung in the first place. Would he rather suck Soonyoung's lower lip at the expense of the roommate code when trying to have the slightest shred of integrity in the face of a fake relationship? One look at Soonyoung's hastily typed text of _over at Jooheon-hyung's, don't wait up_ , and Wonwoo thinks, darkly, that having the higher moral ground really sucks.

He has to wonder if this is how Soonyoung used to feel every time Wonwoo tried not to put his foot into his mouth while pining like a heroine from a tragic novel and failed. It's worked for Jihoon and Junhui, but either Junhui's just too masochistic or blinded by a combination of love, lust, and insanity to find the constant push and pull attractive, even _exciting_. Wonwoo's a normal person. He _hates_ cat-and-mouse games most of all.

"Nah, I think you just hate losing games, period," says Chan, through a mouthful of chips. "You should have heard Soonyoung-hyung vent about you a year ago. _Gross_."

"No one asked _you_ ," says Wonwoo, sulking. Running on two cups of iced coffee and a sad excuse of instant noodles for dinner hasn't lifted Wonwoo's dark mood in the slightest, not after he'd shoved his phone into his bag without replying to Soonyoung.

"Okay, but if you ask me—" which Wonwoo _isn't_ , thanks, Lee Chan—"I think you're being _too_ sensitive about this," says Chan, tongue sticking out of his mouth as he concentrates on the screen in front of him. "You should just let him kiss you again so we can get this sexual tension over and done with, hyung."

They're in a PC bang a couple of blocks away from Chan's dorm, and Wonwoo's been expecting this to be a therapeutic gaming session raining blood and death upon their enemies instead of yet another opportunity for other people to make their personal thoughts on Wonwoo's suffering known.

"Focus," Wonwoo grunts out, shooting a member of the opposing team in the face with no remorse. "What did I say about talking again?"

"Not to, unless I'm gonna trash talk someone else's mother," Chan recites dutifully. "I'm great at multi-tasking, though."

"Well, _I'm_ not," says Wonwoo.

"Yet another thing you and Soonyoung-hyung have in common," says Chan. "Aside from your inability to spit anything out, I mean."

"I don't need to spit out anything."

"Gross," says Chan, making a face and miming vomiting into his bag of chips. "Is this your way of admitting you prefer swallowing?"

"I swear to god, if Soonyoung didn't like you so much—"

Chan scoops up a handful of chips at the side of his keyboard, unbothered. "Never stopped you from hating anyone he slept with before."

The screen turns a little red at the edges. Wonwoo swears it's the game. Really, it is. "Shut up."

"Changkyun-hyung really isn't _that_ bad, you know," says Chan. "You were friends with him first!"

" _Exactly_." Wonwoo grits his teeth. He'd been Changkyun's classmate first, getting close enough as friends to hang out at each other's dorms or apartments in their spare time, but that had shot to hell when he'd introduced him to Soonyoung and they'd hit it off so well that a quick look at Soonyoung's call history would show more incoming calls from him than even Soonyoung's mother or, god forbid, Wonwoo.

(Then again, Wonwoo getting bumped off wasn't exactly _too_ convincing a point to make, when he had his phone on vibrate or silent more often than not and tended to reply hours after. _Still_. Not the fucking point.)

"It’s not healthy being jealous of competition that never existed," Chan points out.

"I know," Wonwoo grunts out. "I was there to see him out that morning, remember?"

"In his defense, he couldn't have known you had a boner for your roommate, hyung."

It doesn't make the betrayal sting any less, though, and Wonwoo's face turns sour at the memory of awkwardly catching Changkyun tugging on his sneakers before any other signs of life emerged from Soonyoung's room. A stranger would have been easier to take, maybe. Someone he'd known— well, Wonwoo's always harbored a sense of pettiness in himself, and he'd iced Changkyun out soon after enough that Soonyoung doesn't bother inviting him whenever he plans on hanging out with Changkyun, Jooheon, or anyone else from that friend circle.

Even now, their conversations are stilted, losing the easy camaraderie they'd had before. Funny, how you think you know a person and suddenly you don't.

"Well," says Wonwoo, his tone sounding stroppy than he intends it to, "now he knows."

"We can't all be mind readers," says Chan. "Which is _why_ you should just confess already."

"Sounds like a bad idea," says Wonwoo, dismissively. " _Pass_."

"Aren't you tired of going along this, though?"

"It's _strategic_ ," Wonwoo insists. "You need to know when to back out or when to go for it."

"So which one of those things are you even doing?"

Wonwoo licks his lips, now uncomfortably dry. But he can't move yet, no, not when he's not in the clear.

"I'm waiting," he says, fingers clenching around his mouse so hard his knuckles turn white. "It's the right thing to do."

"Is it?" Chan muses, humming under his breath. His fingers jab at the keyboard quickly, and before he can react, Wonwoo finds his avatar blown to smithereens and waiting to respawn.

Wonwoo gapes at him, the shock of the betrayal the only thing making his brain lag enough for him to not cuss out Chan and his entire family in one go. Chan stares back at him, unimpressed, and goes back to looking for more victims to hunt down— but not before patting the top of Wonwoo's head condescendingly.

"You're not as good at playing games as you think you are, hyung," says Chan with false sweetness. That _dirty little cheater_. "You should listen to me more."

"I'd rather eat glass," says Wonwoo, scoffing and still nursing his wounded pride.

At this rate, though, he's not confident he _wouldn't_ end up doing exactly that.

 

 

It's not like he hasn't tried confessing. Words are always easier for Wonwoo to form in his head before he has to voice them, and anything sporadic and impromptu just leads to bigger messes. What Wonwoo needs, more than preparation or courage, is timing, and they've never really had much of that.

He'd thought about it many, many times. On Soonyoung's last birthday— the night before Soonyoung had slept with Changkyun and Wonwoo subsequently burned bridges with the latter— he'd had the entire thing planned out for weeks. He'd fended off any invitations to drink or eat out from their friend group, and had even dropped enough hints on Soonyoung to get him to think twice about taking the night bus home so he could ditch class and spend it with his parents and sister. He'd reserved a box of cake from the nearest TLJ and had even cooked without burning the apartment down.

(Well, sort of. He'd gone home the night before to whine at his mother to teach him how to make a passable attempt at seaweed soup and beef stew, and she wound up cooking for him, the extent of his contribution spent hovering over her shoulder and making meager attempts at (poorly) cutting up uneven slices of the raw ingredients that his mother didn't have the heart to scold him for. "You must really love Soonyoung a lot," she'd said quietly, as she packed everything up into tupperwares for him to warm up the day after. He hadn't the heart or courage to deny it, then.)

He'd thought about it, too, even before then. He's always, always thinking about it: on their field trip to Kyoto during senior year and he and Soonyoung had lagged behind so Soonyoung could lament about not having someone to hold hands with on the bridge leading away from the temple grounds. In Jeju, when Soonyoung had picked out sand from his shoes and glumly wondered if he'd ever be able to go on a beach trip with someone he liked.

("You'll have to do, I guess," said Soonyoung with a sigh, the smallest hint of a smile offsetting the high-handed air of his words.

"Guess you're stuck with me forever," said Wonwoo, bumping their shoulders together. They'd still been the same height, then— it had been so easy to look him in the eye without longing to bend to kiss him. Easier, still, when Soonyoung rolled his eyes and shoved him away.)

How many Valentines days Soonyoung spent with mixed feelings of flattery and resentment over obligation (pity) chocolate from classmates and friends. How many times Soonyoung sighed over not being allowed to date while they cleaned the classroom after school, and yet he'd had no line of love-struck juniors leaving love notes in his locker. If only he could be so lucky, he groaned, and still Wonwoo held his tongue.

It's always stopped in his head, hindered. Courage failed him; his tongue felt like lead in his mouth. Someone would call him out, an anxious, trembling freshman with glossy lips and downcast eyes, her own confession playing on the tip of her tongue that muted out the one Wonwoo had tried to find the right words for, the right time, the right ears to listen. A classmate eager to drag Soonyoung away to gawk at other students from a private school on their own field trip, even better if it were an all-girls school. Boys, even, when Soonyoung had found he didn't care either way.

Dinner gone cold, Wonwoo asleep on the couch and stirring awake at the dead of night to hear Soonyoung's muffled laughter and his whispers of, "Stop it, Changkyun-ah, we'll wake up Wonwoo if you don't stop— mmph!"

And then, words or courage felt insufficient; it left his mouth with a sour, acidic taste, like it was full of glass and he'd cut up his tongue when he tried to keep the hurt at bay, a tenuous silence. Lingering. Choking him up.

He's always had bad timing.

 

 

The knob in the front door rattles every time someone unlocks it. Wonwoo hears more than sees Soonyoung let himself in with a muttered curse over his keys, and Wonwoo adamantly does _not_ prick his ears up like a dog when he hears it, no. He's not _Mingyu_ , god.

Instead, he sprawls out on the couch even more, shoving the box of tissues he'd been clutching onto for dear life under the couch. He thinks about switching to a different channel, maybe one with lots of blood and guts and horrific zombies, but then he thinks about how much Soonyoung likes the cheesiness of _this_ drama and decides against it.

He waits for Soonyoung to toe off his shoes and make his way to the common area, and Wonwoo feels the weight of Soonyoung's stare, speculative as he eyes him, heavy and loaded.

"Is that Descendants of the Sun?"

"What does it look like?" Wonwoo grunts out. He keeps his eyes on the TV, trying to make out what little of Soonyoung's reflection he can.

"I thought you hated that drama."

"You left it in the DVD player and I had nothing to watch."

"Spend the night at someone else's apartment and I get my stuff raided, I see."

"Like you haven't been going through my stuff too," Wonwoo points out, lifting himself on his elbows to scowl at Soonyoung, who just shrugs. "Besides," he continues, "what kind of boyfriend stays over another guy's place that easily?"

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. "I'm not gonna sleep with anyone while we're doing this, Mr. Paranoid. Jooheon-hyung's close with Hansol and Seungkwan too."

"I bet."

Soonyoung bristles, fists clenching at his sides like he's rearing for a fight. Wonwoo eyes him warily, but doesn't stand down. It's not the first time they've had an argument that extended past passive-aggressiveness and into the kind aimed to hurt.

That's the hard part about knowing someone for so long, he guesses. They know exactly how to make it hurt.

"What?" Soonyoung raises his eyebrows, mocking. "Are you scared I'm gonna steal more of your friends from you?"

Friends. Right. If only things were that simple. Wonwoo pinches the bridge of his nose. "That's not what this is about." He turns his back to him, irrationally annoyed. "It's not like that, idiot."

Soonyoung takes a deep breath, and for a moment Wonwoo thinks he's rearing to go again, but he seems to think better of it and just drops it.

"Whatever. You don't have to worry about that. I've already learned my lesson," says Soonyoung, rolling his eyes. "I don't wanna subject more people to your sulking."

"I don't sulk!"

"Of course you don't," says Soonyoung, vaguely patronizing. "Let's ask Changkyun again if he's over the trauma."

Wonwoo swallows the lump in his throat he hadn't noticed had formed. "I don’t care if you sleep with Changkyun."

"I know," says Soonyoung, with a deep, worn-out sigh. He retreats to his room, and Wonwoo listens to the sound of his cabinet opening and closing before his footsteps lead away to the bathroom, the click of a lock ringing in his ears, a tinny, incessant buzzing he wants to tune out.

He thinks that maybe he's fucked up yet again, but Soonyoung comes back twenty minutes later, freshly showered and swimming in baggy, ratty house clothes as he towels his hair dry, cheeks flushed and eyes a little puffy. "Scoot over, then," Soonyoung demands, and Wonwoo makes space on the couch for him easily, even as his throat locks up.

Soonyoung curls up against him, but it's not anything outside of the ordinary, hot-or-cold days aside. Before they'd even started not-dating, they used to watch Naruto just like this because Wonwoo always got cold too easily and Soonyoung was as warm as any blanket he'd felt too lazy to retrieve. That, and it had the added bonus of Soonyoung whining and sighing in irritation, but it's not like Wonwoo got pushed away in the end. A part of Wonwoo wonders, wistfully, if they'll ever get back to that kind of innocence, that indifference, the lack of awareness of each other felt too keenly that it made Wonwoo's stomach simmer, but.

This, too, is borrowed penance. None of them knew how to articulate an apology to each other well enough that it didn't feel awkward, but like this, Wonwoo thinks that maybe they're okay.

He loops an arm around the curve of Soonyoung's waist, hesitant for a few seconds before Soonyoung burrows deeper against his side. "What's gotten into you?" Soonyoung asks. "Did you miss me that much?"

"No," says Wonwoo, tucking his face against Soonyoung's nape. He breathes in the scent of his shampoo, feeling his stomach settle. "Didn't you say you wanted me to get used to skinship?"

Soonyoung turns around to look at him, and Soonyoung's expression turns smug, way too pleased for Wonwoo's liking. "Jun was right," he crows. "You and Jihoon really _are_ too alike it's scary."

"What?"

"Junhui said the only way to get you to be more affectionate is if I ignore you long enough," says Soonyoung, with a shit-eating grin that makes Wonwoo roll over to his side and bury his face into a pillow with a groan. "Like a cat, you know— you're really more emotionally constipated than I though you were, Wonwoo-yah."

"Did you just compare me to a _cat_?"

"It's okay," Soonyoung coos, moving to scratch under Wonwoo's chin. Wonwoo bats him away. "At least we got you to open up to the idea of PDA faster, right?"

"I regret ever meeting you," says Wonwoo, flatly.

"I know you only say these things because you're embarrassed," says Soonyoung. "But since I'm the best boyfriend _ever_ , I'll let that one slide."

"You mean, worst _fake_ boyfriend ever," Wonwoo corrects him. _You make everything too real, only to let the illusion fall apart_ , he doesn't say. "So you weren't really mad?"

"Did you want me to be?" Soonyoung preens, scooting closer. "I didn't know you had a kink for that, but don't worry. I won't judge"

" _Ugh_ , you're the worst." Wonwoo mutters. He closes his eyes, steeling himself and praying his voice doesn't crack. "Don't make me worried for nothing like an idiot. At least come home next time."

"Jooheon-hyung wanted to drink," Soonyoung protests. "You know what I'm like after a couple of drinks."

"Call me, then. I don't care if I have to take a cab and get you."

"They know how to take care of me, you know." Soonyoung purses his lips. He doesn't say it, but Wonwoo knows he's thinking of Changkyun. Maybe. Who else would he mean? There's no one out there who'd be willing to put up with sharing a bed with Soonyoung, unless they wanted something out of it.

The thought makes his stomach churn with acid, and he flushes it away.

"I know," says Wonwoo, the confession stuck in his throat. _I want to take care of you. Let me take care of you_. "Just— just call me. Please."

"Never thought you'd be the type to say something so heart-fluttering. All those dramas are getting to your head."

Wonwoo squeezes him, tight enough to be threatening. "Say anything else and I'll shove you off this couch."

"Aaaand we're back to our regular programming again, I see," says Soonyoung, wrinkling his nose. Wonwoo scoffs, but bumps his forehead against Soonyoung's nape, lips brushing against the back collar of his shirt.

Soonyoung's silent, for a while, and just when Wonwoo thinks he's gotten distracted by the sight of a line of half-naked soldiers on-screen, he says, so quietly Wonwoo almost thinks he imagines it: "You'd make a good boyfriend one day, Jeon Wonwoo."

 

 

 

"Jeon Wonwoo," Soonyoung shouts into the mic at a noraebang weeks later, "you are the _worst fucking boyfriend in the world_ and I'm breaking up with you!"

Wonwoo looks at the rest of their friends' slack-jawed gazes, their hunted expressions. He looks at Soonyoung's clenched jaw, the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, dark and hooded in the bad lighting of the noraebang. He looks at him and wonders how it's so easy for him to play this game. How cruel.

All good things must come to an end, he guesses. It's a miracle it hasn't happened earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave up on sticking to the intended projected chapter count.......... the plot has changed so much from the beginning that it's a wonder this is still ongoing orz LAST PUSH!!!! (I hope.)


	5. Chapter 5

Rewind. Pause for a bit.

Shortly after they’d made up (without the kiss, a very tiny, repressed part of Wonwoo thinks sourly), Soonyoung starts bringing up the subject of PDA again like he hasn’t learned his lesson from day one. “Now that we’re totally cool with being in all up in each other’s business—” Which Wonwoo’s not. “—I figured we could try to ramp it up again, at least in front of Minghao. Everyone else is pretty convinced we’re already fucking—” Which, Wonwoo thinks again, sourly, they’re _not_. “—and I’m sure if we can get _more_ people to think the same way, Minghao will start second-guessing himself and he’ll realize that maybe he’s wrong about us.”

“But he’s not,” Wonwoo points out, weakly. He looks at Soonyoung, who’s curled up on his lap and scribbling something on his notebook while Wonwoo is trying (and failing) to concentrate on his 3DS. “Technically, he’s been right all along.”

“But he doesn’t need to know _that_ ,” says Soonyoung, giving him an annoyed glance before going back to his indecipherable chicken scratch. “We just have to convince him enough to get him to cough up the cash. No one else wants to pay up unless he does, and I’m gonna _starve_ at this rate, Wonwoo-yah!”

“If you were that desperate for barbeque, we could just go there tonight,” says Wonwoo. He’s starting to get desperate now, palms sweating and skin prickling every time Soonyoung fusses and shifts in his lap, and he’s had to flush down any fantasies of groping Soonyoung’s ass and pushing him down to grind against his dick until they come messily in their pants so many times that he’s had to reset his last save seven times just to focus. The whining isn’t helping _at all_. Fuck you, Soonyoung, Wonwoo thinks, gritting his teeth. Fuck. You. So. Hard.

“No,” Soonyoung insists with a scowl on his face, his dissatisfaction doing little to abate the strength and purity of Wonwoo’s erection— his affection. Yes. “I don’t wanna pay for it if I can have it for free.”

“I’ll treat you,” says Wonwoo, begging. “ _Please_ just let go of this.”

Soonyoung pouts at him the way he does when Wonwoo says or does something he doesn’t agree with, exactly when he’s pretending to be understanding and sympathetic at first before crushing Wonwoo’s plans for the night. It’s a face he’s made so many times Wonwoo doesn’t even know why he still feels apprehensive about it, but—ah, there it is— that sprinkle of guilt and inane desire to please before the idea of even putting up a token show of resistance comes to mind forms in his belly, simmering.

“I know you hate the idea of being in a fake relationship with me, but I swear we can stop before the year ends if Minghao’s still being a hardass about this,” says Soonyoung. He puts a hand over Wonwoo’s chest before inching closer, tilting his head and giving him a coy smile that he usually pulls out when he’s trying to be nauseatingly cute on purpose, and _fuck_ Wonwoo’s biological impulse to just lean in and relish in it. “We can break up by Christmas so you can find a date around then. I’ll take one for the team and act like an asshole ex to justify your fictional rebound.”

“ _No_ ,” says Wonwoo, and Soonyoung looks surprised at the force in it, but not as much as Wonwoo himself. He puts his 3DS on sleep mode and puts it down, then clears his throat and pushes Soonyoung off of his lap so he could face him properly. He puts his palms on Soonyoung’s sides— that awkward space on Soonyoung’s hips, just a little below his waist—then thinks better of it and rests them on his own knees instead. “I mean, we’re gonna have to make the breakup convincing and _public_. You know. For witnesses.”

“Witnesses?” Soonyoung repeats blankly. “Can’t we just do it in front of—I don’t know, Minghao?”

“The more eyes, the better,” says Wonwoo, shrugging. He picks up his phone, opening his calendar app. Better to let Soonyoung think he’s doing it for the sake of keeping up the pretense than admit that he’s just really panicking over the prospect that maybe the only reason Soonyoung’s even suggesting staging the breakup around then is so _he_ can find a last-minute date in December. “We can do It next time we’re meeting up with a lot of people. Like—” He squints and scrolls past New Year’s. “Seokmin and Hansol’s birthday, maybe?”

“But that’s in _February_ ,” says Soonyoung. “We’re gonna have to deal with Valentine’s day first!”

“Even better,” says Wonwoo, shrugging. “I can always say you fucked up with our reservations or something.”

“So you’d break up with someone over a bad date? Harsh, Wonwoo-yah,” says Soonyoung, shaking his head. “They’re not gonna buy that.”

He’s right, though— if Wonwoo agreeing to even fake-date Soonyoung is any indication of his level of Being Whipped, there’s a lot of things he’s ready and willing to put up with for Soonyoung’s general happiness, apparently. A missed reservation would hardly fly with any of their friends, much less Wonwoo himself.

“Okay, fine,” says Wonwoo, churlishly. “Why don’t _you_ think of a reason?”

“I won’t even need all those months to think of it,” says Soonyoung, giving him an impish smile. “Where do I even begin?”

“On second thought,” Wonwoo hedges, but he’s too late. Soonyoung’s already focused his energies on poking the corpse of their non-existent relationship apart with his bare hands, ruthless and vindictive to the end.

Wonwoo watches Soonyoung school his expression into one of absolute misery, like they’re living together for the first few days again and only now realizing basic life skills they probably should have learned like how to sort the trash for waste collection, how to clean a spill on a wooden table, and how to keep their freshly-laundered clothes from smelling weird after being holed up indoors instead of hung outside to dry. “You pay more attention to your games and your phone than me. You make fun of me all the time. You don’t even wanna do the work when we’re fucking—” Wonwoo, wisely, keeps his mouth firmly shut at that and resists the urge to tell Soonyoung _exactly_ how much effort he’d put in bedding him, if he’d only let him, “—and you gave me secondhand chocolate from your classmates for Valentine’s Day. Which, by the way, you’ve been doing every damn year.”

“I never heard you complain when you were stuffing your face with Royce!”

“Well, it’s different if we’re together!”

“Which we’re not,” Wonwoo reminds him.

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “I found another reason to break up. You’re an annoying smartass. Why’d I even fake-date _you_ again?”

“Keep talking like that and I’ll _really_ give you a reason to break up _right now_ ,” Wonwoo threatens.

It’s no use, though— Soonyoung’s not even listening anymore, scrambling off the couch and cackling about all the grand plans he has to make about the impending demise of their relationship. Wonwoo’s never seen anyone so animated about a break-up before, and while he knows it’s all fake anyway, it still stings to hear Soonyoung hum and act like all the months leading up to then don’t merit enough significance to reconsider.

He should have been used to it, really. He’s the one who’s the most invested in this farce, after all.

 

 

But there’s the little things Soonyoung’s says or does that makes Wonwoo wish otherwise.

For one thing, while he knows it’s all for show, there’s something strangely gratifying about seeing him sulk and mope in a jealous snit whenever he’s trying to squeeze himself into Wonwoo’s free time and gets refused for it because of a prior commitment. It’s like he’s not satisfied with taking up just the bare minimum amount of time needed to convince their friends of the farce and is fully committing himself to acting like a clingy boyfriend, with or without Wonwoo’s input. And while his attempts at monopolizing Wonwoo’s attention _should_ be annoying, Wonwoo just finds himself equal parts exasperated and endeared, Soonyoung’s stroppy pout tugging at something in his chest. He wants to wipe it away with a long, deep kiss, but propriety (and sanity) win out in the end enough for him to settle on a healthier compromise of pecking the corner of Soonyoung’s mouth, right in front of Seungcheol’s raised eyebrow and Jihoon’s long-suffering one.

“He’ll only be gone for two hours, drama queen,” says Jihoon, rolling his eyes. He turns to Soonyoung and smacks him upside the head none too gently, making Soonyoung yelp and whine longer, enough that it makes Wonwoo’s fingers twitch at his sides, longing to stroke the pain away. “Stop acting like you’ll die if he doesn’t stick to you 24/7.”

“It’s fine,” says Wonwoo. “It’s kinda cute.”

“You always think he’s cute,” says Jihoon, drily. “Clearly, love is blind.”

“I should say the same for you,” says Soonyoung, making a face. “What does Junnie see in you again?”

“Junhui has 20/20 vision, fuck you,” Jihoon points out. “Wonwoo keeps squinting at everyone when he doesn’t have his glasses or contact lenses on him.”

Still dissatisfied, Soonyoung turns to Wonwoo to grab at his sleeve, tugging at it idly. “I’ve got a better idea,” says Soonyoung. “Why don’t _you_ go to Wonwoo’s lecture instead and take notes for him so _we_ can spend my break together?”

“And enable your codependent relationship? No way.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’ll be there guarding him like a hawk,” Seungcheol jokes. He checks his watch, then crosses his arms over his chest. “Come on, Wonwoo. We’ve only got five minutes until class starts.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Wonwoo, feeling his face flush at Soonyoung’s puffed out cheeks. “I’ll see you later, Soonyoungie.”

“Go,” says Soonyoung, heaving a sigh. “Leave me alone to suffer like a third wheel when Junhui gets here.”

“Serves you right, you jerk.”

Soonyoung lets go of Wonwoo’s sleeve, finally, if only to devote his efforts into arguing with Jihoon. Even then, the reluctance is not lost to Seungcheol, who makes a face and loops his fingers around his ear to signify just how crazy he thinks both of them are being. Which is _fine_. It’s all part of the plan, is the thing— _you can just tell everyone I’m too clingy, it’s suffocating_ , he’d said over dinner, kicking at Wonwoo’s leg under the table the whole time. When Wonwoo had stopped responding, he’d let his toes rest against Wonwoo’s calf and brushed up and down until Wonwoo’s poker face cracked and he caught Soonyoung’s foot by the ankle, just to get him to stop. _I can do that easily_.

Wonwoo hasn’t had the heart to tell him that out of the two of them, it’s Wonwoo that enjoys the clinginess the most. At least this way, he can fool himself into thinking Soonyoung feels more for him than he really does. Really and truly, Soonyoung probably doesn’t know what it means to miss someone every day. Even now, after Wonwoo’s let himself be less guarded enough to surprise Soonyoung with a full-mouthed kiss before they part, in between Jihoon’s groaning and Seungcheol’s jeering, he realizes: he’s been crossing a dangerous line again and again, taking a mile with every inch Soonyoung gives him.

“Jihoon’s right,” Seungcheol tells him. “You guys really _are_ getting too codependent.”

“We’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for,” Wonwoo lies, shrugging.

Seungcheol gives him a searching look, brows knitted together. “You sure you aren’t overcompensating or something?”

 _You don’t know the half of it_ , Wonwoo thinks. If only they knew.

 

   
Then there’s the matter of Christmas to think about.

It’s just a normal day off for both of them, squashed in between winter session courses and the tortuous waiting period for fall semester grades. They’re not leaving for home until a little before New Year’s, classes still a bane to their existence until the 31st, so Soonyoung makes it a point to drag Wonwoo out on a date with Junhui and Jihoon for Christmas, if only to let Junhui’s irrepressible urge to post on Instagram become sufficient proof of the legitimacy of their relationship.

“How nauseating,” Minghao sneers when he hears Junhui gush about their plans to go to Everland for Christmas. “You realize it’s gonna be far from romantic when you’re surrounded by hundreds of screaming and crying kids, right?”

“You’re just jealous you have a make-up class on Christmas,” says Jihoon, drily.

Minghao purses his lips, but doesn’t say anything to refute it. More than Minghao, though, it’s _Mingyu_ that’s taken to whining about Minghao’s schedule on their group chat far too many times that everyone’s half-convinced he’s going to show up in Minghao’s class and wait for him like a sad, abandoned puppy outside the auditorium just to soak up the rest of his free time. Wonwoo’s not putting it past him _at all_. And they say Soonyoung’s the co-dependent one. Huh.

Still, at least it’s gotten Minghao well and truly on the road to shedding his skepticism and admitting defeat now that he’s increasingly convinced of how sickeningly in love Wonwoo and Soonyoung are. “I give up,” he’d slurred at the last party they’d thrown just before Jisoo had to pack his bags and leave for the holidays and his birthday, not even bothering to sign up for classes during winter. “You two are so annoying, I’m letting Mingyu pick the color scheme and the damn flowers.”

(To this day, Minghao swears up and down that _that_ hadn’t happened, and Mingyu’s more than a little peeved at all of the supposed witnesses for not recording the irrefutable proof of his surrender. Wonwoo had tried— _really_ , he did— but Soonyoung was already giggly and drunk and, more importantly, pawing at Wonwoo’s clothes as he made himself comfortable on Wonwoo’s lap. Self-control. It’s a thing Wonwoo regrets he’s built up over time, far from immune to a squirmy and whiny Soonyoung.)

“Whatever,” Minghao scoffs. Then, with a critical eye aimed at Soonyoung and Wonwoo’s clasped hands, he adds, “If you’re still together by New Year, then maybe I’ll feel generous enough to treat you guys.”

“Can’t we just go _now_?” Soonyoung whines.

“Barbeque for a date with me as a third wheel?” Minghao asks, incredulously. Turning to Wonwoo, he asks, “Are you sure you still wanna be with this idiot, hyung?”

“I’m sure,” Wonwoo affirms, but the words are lost to Soonyoung and Minghao both, already bickering over their respective romantic ideas. Still, from the flush of Soonyoung’s skin, blooming pink all over his throat, Wonwoo thinks that maybe Soonyoung’s not completely insensitive, no.

He hopes.

 

 

Even with that slightest beacon of light towards free barbeque at Minghao’s expense, Soonyoung’s still persistent about letting this Christmas date happen one way or another. They stop by a café to pick up coffee and bread to snack on along the way, and Wonwoo and Jihoon trail behind Soonyoung and Junhui as they map out the attractions they’re planning on lining up for, not even bothering to ask for their respective significant others’ inputs.

“Don’t you feel like we’re just getting steamrolled into doing whatever it is they want?” Wonwoo asks Jihoon, eyebrows raised.

Jihoon takes a sip of his cappuccino, careful to blow carefully over the hot beverage and not have it spill on the pastel-blue scarf Junhui had lovingly wrapped around him earlier. “You kinda get used to the boyfriend duties,” says Jihoon, shrugging. “Though I strongly suspect Soonyoung’s more insufferable than Junhui is.”

“Soonyoung doesn’t insist on using cute animal filters and uploading your face to social media for everyone to see,” Wonwoo points out.

Jihoon sighs, then obligingly lets Junhui call him over for a selca when they pass by a mascot taking pictures with groups of kids. “Maybe I should just date you instead.”

Wonwoo laughs, but Soonyoung overhears it and greedily latches onto Wonwoo’s arm, sticking his tongue out at Jihoon. “He’s taken,” says Soonyoung, imperiously.

“Your possessiveness is, as always, astounding,” says Jihoon, drily, and shuffles off to make his way to Junhui, ready to take his picture for him.

“You can let go now,” says Wonwoo, after a beat. Soonyoung doesn’t loosen his grip on Wonwoo’s arm, still looking vaguely mutinous. “You know he’s just joking, right?”

“You can never be too careful,” says Soonyoung, cryptically. “I don’t want _my_ boyfriend to be taken away from me so early.”

 _I’m not your boyfriend_ , is his first thought. The next, dripping less with sarcasm, but more vulnerable, more insecure, whispers: _You’ve always got me, even if you don’t know it_.

“You and your trust issues,” he says, instead.

He doesn’t push Soonyoung away though. One more mistake, among many, and still he keeps making them. What a mess.

 

 

By the time they get to Everland, Soonyoung insists on Junhui taking all the gratuitous couple pictures for them, even dragging Wonwoo into a photobooth for good measure, and while the strip of evidence of Soonyoung steadily reducing the space between them until there’s barely any in the sweetest and shortest of kisses Wonwoo lets himself relish in, it doesn’t seem like it’s enough for Soonyoung just yet, no. It’s as if he’s trying to fill a vacuum for something that Jihoon’s earlier comment had seemed to instill in him, doubt seeping through the cracks of their façade. Wonwoo doesn’t get it, not when Jihoon doesn’t seem like he means anything by it, fully convinced of Soonyoung and Wonwoo’s ill-advised romance, but the problem with Soonyoung is that he tends to get too fixated, too hypercompetitive. A perfectionist even, trying to keep up the ruse.

He doesn’t drop it, not even when they finally part ways with Junhui and Jihoon a little before sunset and drags him over to the light show before it begins. There’s no one watching them, but still Soonyoung holds onto him, greedy, proprietary, not unlike the couples they pass by. The real ones that aren’t putting up a pretense for the rest of the world to see. It’s not—

It’s not supposed to make Wonwoo’s stomach flutter with ill-concealed feelings, but he lets it take over, their linked fingers anchoring him back to reality. He’s always been terrible at pretending.

“You’re gonna be dead on your feet tomorrow morning,” says Wonwoo, letting himself be pulled into the crowd by Soonyoung’s gloved hands interlaced with his. “Don’t you have an eight AM class?”

“It’ll be fine,” says Soonyoung. “My professor’s got a wife and kids. I bet he’s gonna call in sick tomorrow.”

“I’m not gonna wake you up if you sleep through your alarm,” Wonwoo threatens.

Still, he can’t say he regrets it though, watching the parade of lights sparkling up ahead and reflecting off the brightness of Soonyoung’s eyes. Christmas has always meant nothing to him, just another day off to laze around and maybe indulge in the decorations and store promotions, but there’s something about tonight that drains the cynicism out of his spirits, bubbling instead with warmth and uncontrollable fondness as he sticks closer to Soonyoung, resting his chin on the juncture of Soonyoung’s neck and shoulder. In the middle of the crowd, far away from prying eyes that matter most to their little bet, Wonwoo’s lips brush, lightly, against Soonyoung’s nape; Soonyoung shivers and fidgets but doesn’t pull away, not even when Wonwoo’s arms snake around his waist to trap him in.

“What are you doing, idiot?” Soonyoung asks, laughing. “That tickles.”

“I’m cold,” Wonwoo grouses. He hides his face against Soonyoung’s skin, huffing. “Warm me up.”

“Your lips are freezing, Wonwoo-yah,” is all Soonyoung says, reaching up to ruffle the top of his head, messing up the perm he’d gotten on a whim. “Do you wanna go to a café and look for something hot?”

“No,” says Wonwoo, voice muffled against Soonyoung’s skin. “I’m fine right here.”

“Dumbass,” says Soonyoung, fondly. He clasps his hands over Wonwoo’s, turning to look back at the sparkling lights. “I’m glad I’m with you right now, Wonwoo-yah.” Then, teasingly, he adds, “At least now I can brag that I’m finally getting the full romantic experience after how many years of being single.”

“Me too,” says Wonwoo, smirking. “I’ve never really had a date on Christmas, much less a fake one.”

“Never?” Soonyoung asks, sounding surprised as he looks back at Wonwoo, unconvinced. “Not even once?”

“Never,” says Wonwoo. He squeezes Soonyoung tighter, making him squeak. “Congrats on taking my Christmas virginity, Soonyoungie.”

“I’m taking a lot of firsts from you, Wonwoo-yah,” says Soonyoung, eyes crinkling. “Won’t your future favorite person be mad?”

Wonwoo swallows the lump that’s formed in his throat, wordless now. He doesn’t know what to say to that, unable to imagine a future where Soonyoung isn’t his most favorite person in the world, so he doesn’t say anything.

It’s easier to blame the sinking of his stomach to the cold, that’s all. And yet. And yet. It doesn’t feel right, is the thing.

He thinks about all the things he wishes he could have done instead, to make this a little less excruciating, a little more real. He could have told Soonyoung when they’d been fighting, vulnerable and raw and still stewing in hurt. He could have told Soonyoung, when they’d started escalating the skinship. When they’d tried to convince their friends their dates were real. When Soonyoung had offered, the first time, and Wonwoo had just gone along, making it seem like everything was Soonyoung’s own idea and none of it Wonwoo’s choice. When he’d given him a cheesy ring, and Wonwoo had taken it.

He could have said something a long time ago, before the bet had started between their friends, before Soonyoung had let Changkyun go home with him, before Kyoto, before Jeju, before all the confessions from people he wasn’t in love with. Before. Before.

Now— now seems to be as good a time as any.

He slowly loosens his hold on Soonyoung, impulse and recklessness thrumming under his veins. Soonyoung squares his shoulders and looks even more confused, if not a little upset that Wonwoo’s moving away from him. “What are you—”

“Soonyoung,” says Wonwoo, mouth feeling dry and loaded with something thick and congealing, “I have to tell you something important.”

Soonyoung tenses even more, eyes darting away from Wonwoo’s. “Are you breaking up with me on Christmas, Jeon Wonwoo?” He asks, tone teasing, but his expression looks anything but happy. “We agreed on Valentines Day, didn’t we?”

“It’s not that,” says Wonwoo, patience running thin. Soonyoung snorts, but quiets down at Wonwoo’s furrowed brows. “Soonyoung, come on. Just listen to me for once.”

Soonyoung opens his mouth, looking equally at a loss for words. “Wonwoo, I—” He starts, then loses his nerve. Whatever he wants to say, it feels as insufficient as the spark of electricity that runs through Wonwoo’s fingers as he gently pries Soonyoung’s hands from his, then turns him around until they’re facing each other.

Voice hushed, Soonyoung runs his thumb against Wonwoo’s cheek, as if to rub away an imaginary fleck of dirt from his skin. “Hi,” says Soonyoung, meekly now.

Wonwoo’s lips twitch upwards, aching to stretch out into a smile. “Hey yourself.”

“Please don’t break up with me,” says Soonyoung, biting his lip. “We haven’t even gotten our spoils of war yet.”

“I’m not breaking up with you, Soonyoung.”

“Oh,” Soonyoung breathes out. “Good.”

Wonwoo steels himself, trying to muster enough courage. Like this, Soonyoung looks so achingly lovely, warm and bundled up in his overly-large coat and the scarf he’d stolen from Wonwoo’s wardrobe. His ears are tinged pink, his lips bitten-red and skin cracking from the cold. It’s so easy to kiss him. So, so easy. Wonwoo takes a step forward, heart full and aching.

“I—” He starts, then gets distracted by Soonyoung’s eyes suddenly widening and his arms reaching out to loop around his neck. “What—”

“Junhui and Jihoon are right behind you,” says Soonyoung, through gritted teeth. Then, nosing at Wonwoo’s ear, he mouths, “Kiss me, you idiot.”

And that— that just soaks through Wonwoo’s bones, jolting him out of his love-struck stupor like a bucket of water over his head. The annoyance bubbles in his stomach, petty and biting, belligerent to the end. He wants to squash it down, but it’s overflowing. The confession on the tip of his tongue dies, lost in the thickness lodged in his throat.

“Isn’t this enough?” He asks, sounding more helpless than he intends to, so much so that Soonyoung seems to catch it. Soonyoung’s arms feel heavy around him, binding and weighing him down, and the fluttering in Wonwoo’s stomach quiets, dispelled. “Let’s just go, Soonyoung. _Please_.”

“I’m sorry, Wonwoo,” says Soonyoung, looking conflicted. Then, more mercenarily now, he stands on his tiptoes and drags Wonwoo’s face closer to his. “Don’t hate me?”

It’s impossible to, but it’s this feeling he hates most of all, putting on a show— lies, in Junhui’s distant cackling and Jihoon’s cat-calling. Lies, in the clicks of Junhui’s camera phone aimed at their direction. In Soonyoung’s kiss, heady and wanton and promising more while denying Wonwoo the reality of it.

He hates the realization that he doesn’t have Soonyoung, even when he’s kissing him. _Hates it_.

 

 

Soonyoung, predictably, sleeps through his alarm the next day. Wonwoo doesn’t wake him up— out of spite, out of stubbornness, out of selfishness, he doesn’t know. He turns off Soonyoung’s snooze button, then hides his phone under the pillow, letting him rest.

Still, raking his hands through Soonyoung’s hair and watching him snore and drool all over Wonwoo’s comforter, he wonders when it will stop hurting. If he’ll ever get what he wants.

It doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to be enough.


End file.
